Silent Screams
Searching for the light
He fell into darkness
His screams were not heard
– Zahra Brown
The Story Behind Silent Screams
I wrote Silent Screams when I was around 13 years old, and I still love this poem over twenty years later.
On Friday, our English teacher said we were entering a children’s poetry competition for students. Most of the class, including me, didn’t want to do it, but we had no choice. We were given one weekend to write a poem for submission.
The next day, I wrote Silent Screams. It was a Haiku, a Japanese-style poem. Haikus are usually based on a certain number of syllables per line, so it was hard trying to meet such a narrow criteria, but it turned out pretty well!
Being published in a poetry anthology for kids was the competition’s prize, so submissions came from many schools. My poem was chosen! It was my first time being published since I started writing. Ordering copies of the book and seeing my poem was so exciting! I didn’t see my work in print again for ten years, which is when I started self-publishing.
To learn more about my publishing journey, click here to see how I went from four pen names to two. One of those names is Zuni Blue, a children’s pen name. If you have kids who enjoy mysteries, adventure, action, non-fiction and, starting this year, Christian stories, please check out my children’s books here.