Mars Sell: Woodstock’s Newly Published Poet

Woodstock Senior Mars Sell, performed her original poem: “My Dad went to Europe and All I Got Was a Wooden Giraffe” at the Poetry Out Loud Competition on March 14th in Barre. In addition to being invited to perform, her poem was also published as a result of her winning the Poetry Out Loud Original Poem Writing Contest.

“I got a little teary eyed. I’ve won a few scholastic awards, but this is the first time I’ve had my work published,” Mars says.

Her poem follows the relationship between a girl and her father. Throughout the poem,

Mars uses the seemingly amusing concept of a wooden giraffe as a metaphor for the absence of the girl's father. “I tried to focus a lot on the personification of the giraffe itself to add a deeper connection to the giraffe,” Mars explains.

Mars originally wrote the poem for a UVM creative writing class in 2020. “I was meant to write a poem about an object for the class. The object I chose was a wooden giraffe my grandfather got me and I decided to write a completely different story about it,” Mars says.

Mars didn’t think much about the poem after submitting it.

“I just had an assignment due and I didn’t know what else to write about,” Mars mentions.

However, nearly a year later she did some heavy editing and submitted her poem to a Scholastic writing contest.

Her poem won silver on a national level and won the Poetry out Loud Original Poem Contest.

When Mars found out that she would be able to perform her poem and have it published she was “pretty excited.”

The experience inspired Mars to continue her poetry career. Although she won’t solely focus on poetry, she’s thinking about committing some time to writing poems. Mars is no stranger to getting her writing recognized. This will surely be one of many featured pieces in Mars' writing career.