“As I wrote, time stopped” RPLA Showcase: Jacqueline Cook

“I’m gonna go off-script here for a minute,” said Royal Palm Literary Awards ceremony co-host Chris Hamilton, just prior to the announcement of this year’s winner of the Candice Coghill Award for best Youth entry.

“As we prepped this [RPLA ceremony], I was impressed with what the winners came up with, at such a young age. I think us older people are going to have to really dig deep so that we can stay competitive as these guys age into the adult categories.”

Hamilton, himself no slouch as a writer, concluded, “We’ve got our work cut out for us!”

The winner of the Candice Coghill Award was Jacqueline Cook, whose poem “Blue and Black” was also awarded the Gold Medal for Poetry in the twelve-to-fifteen age group. RPLA Showcase contacted Jacqueline, who graciously took time—between final exams—to respond to some of our questions.

So, introduce yourself! Tell us what makes you tick.

Hi, I’m Jacqueline Cook. I’m in ninth grade and live in Winter Park. I’ve been writing for about five years but have had a wandering imagination since the day I was born, although I can’t really remember that because they say you lose the first five years of your life—or maybe it’s because of the concussions I’ve had from soccer.

You’ve been writing for five years? So you started…?

In fourth grade I started writing essays for English, but I always felt constricted and wanted to write more in a story-like sense.

And when did you discover the Florida Writers Association and FWAY?

I believe it was in fifth grade that I submitted to the FWA Collection for the first time and was published, and I was the youngest attendee at the Florida Writers Youth Conference. And the next year I was again the youngest. And the year after that as well. I kept entering the Collection and started entering the RPLA contests and placing in them, and I learned more and more, as my writing continued to improve.

So you found the experience helpful?

Yes. My advice to youth writers who are thinking about entering the RPLA contest or the FWA Collection is, as Nike says, JUST DO IT. You can get amazing experience from hearing from the RPLA judges and/or get published, which is a great start to your writing journey.

Ah, the writer’s journey. We all know about that! Tell us a little about your early days.

I remember the first poem I wrote—it was in seventh grade for my creative writing class. Before that I had only written a couple haikus, but this time, I had to write a poem. I was so lost for any clue of what to do. So I chose to write a poem about the clock on the wall. Funny enough, as I wrote it, time stopped! And there I was, sitting at my desk with my heart racing because for the first time, I forgot how to write. But the words flowed onto the page, and I was a poet.

Jacqueline, you may be young, but you are, after all, a prize-winning poet, and obviously a very serious student of your craft. What can you share of your “poet’s philosophy”?

If you think there are rules to writing poetry, I’m sorry to say you’re mistaken. There isn’t a formula or any certain words you can put in to guarantee it will be good or syllable count that will really make it work. It’s all about how you see life and how life sees you and how well you can put that down on paper.

What do you look for in your own work?

To me, a poem I’ve written is successful when I’ve read it forty-seven times and I absolutely hate it because I’ve read it so many times, but this time, there’s nothing I want to change. That’s a successful poem.

In the movie Shakespeare in Love, Will would sit down on his favorite stool, spin a quill between his palms, and spit before he started to write. Have you got any interesting quirks or rituals?

I do have a favorite writing method. Even though we have so much technology in the world, when I write short stories or poems or anything else creative, I always resort to my one fancy pen and my special spiral notebook, which by now, has almost every page filled. And if I like the poem enough, I transfer it to my computer. But I never start on my computer.

Do you find writing rewarding?

What I love about writing is that it allows me to escape, taking me out of this world. You can leave all the problems of this world behind, and even though you might create a character exactly like you, with the same problems and struggles, you can have them conquer those problems. And even though you’re not able to deal with them the same way they are, you can somehow cope with the problems you have as a result. And for just one minute, they’re not your problems.

We all know that writers must read. Tell us about some of your recent reading experiences.

I’ve read a lot of books that have taken my breath away, but I had to read The Odyssey for school, and that one definitely didn’t affect any of my breathing patterns, other than make me snore. A book that did take my breath away was Pride and Prejudice, because the story was so captivating and the characters so compelling. And when I finished it, I wished I could have lived in the 19th century.

Here is Jacqueline Cook’s Candice Coghill Award-winning poem.

Blue and Black
Jacqueline Cook

She grabs the collar of her dress
Fastening every glass button
Before he comes home
Covering, covering, covering
Because maybe if she just covers up
No harm has been done
She buttons up
And sucks in every imperfection
Hiding her tears from the mirror
Because it saddens her to see the reflection
She’s damaged goods
She has too many bruises
And is brought down by his eyes
Told she’s not skinny enough
Told she’s not pretty enough
Not worthy to be wrapped with a bow

She’s buttoned up
Barely able to breathe
Because she’s sucked in every breath
Pulled the dress so tightly
The buttons almost burst at the seams
It’s a lovely dress
Blue and black
With gold thread woven through the back
It’s a long sleeve
Floor length dress
With enough coverage to hide every blemish
She protects herself
And everything is held together by those delicate buttons
Because once her marks are covered up
They’re not really there
So when she has the dress on
Those buttons hold her together