MADISON – Alyssa Kennedy’s writing has been recognized in the 2013 High School Literary Arts Awards with the Alabama Writers’ Forum.

Kennedy, a sophomore at Bob Jones High School, earned third place in the forum’s contest.

Kennedy’s poem, “Say I Love You,” emphasized courage. “Often, I find that people define courage as being fearless, but I believe that courage isn’t the ability to have no fear; courage is the ability to act in spite of fear,” she said.

In the poem, a girl asks ways to say, “I love you” with action instead of words. She introduces an abusive figure who suggests, “With a balled fist, with a forced kiss, with spite and malice drawn like a sword, with no understanding of the three little words”.

Kennedy’s character found courage by finding “the audacity to love herself.”

Kennedy wrote, “So this is how I love myself, with my bags in one hand and my mother’s in the other, with possibilities overflowing in my future.” Kennedy believes “courage is daring to take action and refusing to be a victim.”

“The Internet gives us the world at our fingertips, but writing is the world at my fingertips. I can tear down an entire nation with the stroke of a pencil and build up a merciful leader with drums on a keyboard,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy enjoys writing more than she thought possible. “I write to mold a world that this world can look up to … a world this one can learn from,” she said. “More than anything, I write to use the gift God has given me to bring glory to His name.”

The forum also recognized Sarah Hartung, Leah Plume, Madelyn Wong, Mary Butgereit and Storm Taylor.

Forum officials presented awards in the Alabama State Capitol in March.