Jesse's poem "Overstimulation" won first place in the 2019 issue.
He just graduated Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto, California and will be attending Reed College in the Fall.
This is his third winning entry in The Bedford Ledger.
He just graduated Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto, California and will be attending Reed College in the Fall.
This is his third winning entry in The Bedford Ledger.
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Tell us a little about yourself. When did you first start writing poetry?
I started writing poetry in the 6th grade. I always enjoyed creative writing, but it wasn’t until high school that I truly saw poetry in a revealing light. Do you have any favorite poets or poems that you like to read or have influenced your style of writing? Last year, I took a modern poetry class where I had the opportunity to study the greats. From Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson to Gertrude Stein to Langston Hughes and Allen Ginsberg, I was able to study the beauty that is the diversity of style within poetry. Who or what inspires your love for writing/poetry? My fountain of inspiration constantly flows with influence from all of my surroundings and experiences. Though what I find that allows me to achieve a more creative level in my expressive statements is trying to write in the respective style of my poetry heroes. Because of this practice, I don’t feel I have a specific style of poetry, since I feel influenced by multifarious genres. That said, part of my process in writing is rooted in spilling out the words I feel fit a specific feeling or moment in time, regardless if it seems incoherent to the ears and eyes of the rest of the world. Which, by the way, is a process I recently learned Ginsberg also practiced. |
Give us some background on your writing - do you only write poetry? Do you write for pleasure? Have you won any other contests?
While I do write short stories and play concepts and dabble in scene scripts, poetry is my true passion. Which is why I’ve submitted to the Bedford Ledger contest for the past 3 years and am so honored to have received the rewards of Honorable Mention, Third Place Winner, and now First Place Winner of this contest. What was the inspiration or the story behind your winning poem? My poem “Overstimulated” was written as an expressive platform for my nerve-racking student admissions day at Reed College (the school I will be attending this coming fall). Out of sheer overstimulation as a result of too much noise and anxiety and my phone missing, I created this. |
