In May, senior Christian Butterfield, a staff member on the Purple Gem, found out that he had been selected to be the National Student Poet of the Southeast. Out of about 20,000 juniors and sophomores who submit poetry to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, 35 students are considered for this particular award. Then, they pick five kids to represent Scholastic Art and Writing. Christian earned a well-deserved spot as one of the top-5 student poets in the nation.
Most people would look at Christian’s achievement and assume that he has been writing poetry his entire life, but that’s actually not the case.
“You know, I haven’t been writing poetry that long, oddly enough,” Christian said. “I’ve always written, but that’s always just been in class, being good at writing (essays) and stuff like that.”
His whole life turned around simply through a slam poetry unit in his performing arts class, when he and his classmates were assigned to write their own slam poems. “I wrote mine, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m like, good at this,’” he said, “Ever since then I’ve just tried to keep on writing poems, and then I submitted some to Scholastic art and writing, and they really liked them, and now I’m here!”
Christian’s love for writing poetry isn’t just something he enjoys for himself; he writes to motivate and inspire his peers. He wants to challenge students to look beyond the poem and realize that it’s not as straightforward as English class makes it out to be.
“We’re always like, ‘Oh this is what poetry has to be, it has to rhyme, it has to have a certain rhythm, it has to be about something obscure,’” Christian observed, “but, when I write, and when anyone who writes and loves poetry writes, it’s really about this freedom of self expression.”
Christian preaches that anyone can write anything as long as it’s true to them. “That sense of self expression and having that power within yourself to be able to write whatever you want and put your words on a page is really, really freeing, so when I write poetry I really feel free,” he explained. His method of writing such elaborate and meaningful poems is to center his poems around questions that he has trouble answering.
As the National Student Poet of the Southeast, Christian gets to attend multiple events, such as in October when he’s going to be speaking on panels and running workshops at the Texas Book Festival. Alongside his four companions across the nation, Christian gets to to design and formulate his own community service project in the local community.
“I’m thinking about doing something with non-neurotypical youth and teaching poetry to them,” Christian said, “because I feel like poetry is a great way to communicate with non-neurotypical children like myself.” The community service part of the program is what he is most excited about.
Students at Bowling Green High School have been aware of Christian’s natural writing abilities--- whether it’s by hearing him merely participate in a class discussion, or listening to him read one of his poems, bringing multiple people to tears--- so this major achievement serves to only further prove the extent and worth of his talent.
You can find more of Christian’s work in The Amethyst, Bowling Green High School’s new literary and arts magazine. You can find The Amethyst on Instagram @bgamethyst.
By Gwen Hatcher