Lisa Breese is impressed every day with her students’ talent. And when it came time for the Wareham Middle School’s first poetry and arts contest, the eighth grade English language arts teacher said she was not disappointed.

Breese said she can’t quite recall whose idea the contest was -- she believes it may have been Principal Daniel Minkle’s idea -- but she did remember that the middle school faculty was very excited about the contest.

The school conducts a school-wide writing contest about four times a year, said Breese, in which the students are given an hour to write about an assigned topic. Breese said the results never fail to amaze the staff.

“We always get this stack of work, and we’re like, ‘Wow, if they can do this in an hour, imagine if they could pick what to write about,’” Breese said.

Because the contest was held in April, the faculty decided on the general theme of spring. But because of the scope of the talent at the school, Breese said, the faculty did not want to limit it to just writing. The faculty settled on including visual art in the contest, too -- and what the students produced impressed art teacher Andrea Barrett.

Because the piece the students could submit was the size of a postcard, Barrett said, she saw the students become very creative, and making more abstract designs, which she said is unusual for middle schoolers.

“Middle schoolers really want their art to look like something, in the end,” Barrett said. “But [for the contest] they would do flowers and leaves, and … would cut off the petals, because they didn’t have room, but it made it very interesting.”

Barrett and Breese agreed that the piece by overall art winner Sarah Tarrant, a seventh grader, was beautiful. According to Barrett and Breese, Tarrant did a sketch of a young girl on a tire swing.

“It was phenomenal,” Breese said. “I wish I could draw like that.”

Barrett said the poem by one of the overall contest winners, Angel Hernandes, also a seventh-grader, surprised her, because she did not realize he was such a good writer.

“He’s a really creative kid in art class,” Barrett said. “But he wrote this poem that was a very clear winner.”

Breese said about 200 students entered the contest, and the winners got vouchers for the upcoming scholastic book fair.

“It was a really good turnout,” Breese said. “I think, in the future, we’re going to do it even bigger. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do this, and more, next year.”