Kiera Lafferty places with poetry in creative writing contest

Kiera Lafferty, a fifth-grade student at Springfield Public Elementary School, won third place in the poetry section of the fifth and sixth-grade category of the 13th Annual Creating Spaces Writing Contest sponsored by the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall. 

As part of the keynote speaker’s presentation he selected Kiera’s poem to show on his media presentation and read her poem to the entire group of over 200 attendees.  The speaker was James D. Autio, an artist, educator and poet from the Twin Cities. Mr. Autio stated that after reading the entire Anthology, Kiera’s poem stood out to him by stating, “For the first time ever let me present to you Minnesota poet Kiera Lafferty from Comfrey, Minnesota”, then read her poem:

Loneliness

She is alone in the dark.

The only light was her little spark.

It left such a scar.

That lonely little star.

                         —Kiera Lafferty 

 This program is to encourage the love of language and writing for all students and as a way to recognize the talented young writers in southwest and west central Minnesota. Students from 16 area school districts and many individual students participated in the contest. There were 194 student participants, who submitted 284 entries in poetry, fiction, and/or non-fiction categories. 

The winners, their families and teachers were invited to the Creative Writing Contest Awards Ceremony held on Sunday, April 23 at SMSU in Marshall. Medals were awarded to all students, along with an anthology of the winning entries.