“When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives,” is a provocative line written by poet Lauren Eden in her 2018 book “Lioness Awakens.” For Maya Picard, it also lit a spark that turned into the poem “Silverware,” this year’s winning entry in the second annual teen poetry contest in recognition of Teen Dating Violence Awareness month.

On Thursday, Picard and her fellow contestants were honored for their work and given an opportunity to share their poems at a reception held at the Loveland Public Library.

“The funny thing is, the poem is old,” Picard said. “I wrote it a few years ago, in 2021 or 2022, when I was writing about a lot of things — family members, reminiscing on things. … But I thought about that quote a lot and I took inspiration from it.”

Picard is a senior in the gifted program at Harold Ferguson High School due to her advanced verbal and computer science skills. A voracious reader since the age of two, writing is something that has always come naturally to her, said Picard’s mother Rendi Eichner. “She’s an amazing writer,” Eichner said proudly. “Outside of poetry, she writes amazing stories.”

In addition to Lauren Eden, Picard said that she is also inspired by the poetry of Maya Angelou, with whom she shares a first name.

For her first place finish, Picard received a $200 gift card, which she will probably use to expand her already extensive library, she said.

The contest was sponsored by the library in collaboration with nonprofit Alternatives to Violence as a way to “prompt a conversation” about an underdiscussed topic.

According to Jillian Kohlman, ATV’s non-residential program coordinator, one in three teens experience physical, sexual or emotional abuse in a dating relationship, making it imperative to openly discuss the difficult subject starting at a young age.

“I always tell young people, the first relationships are really what establishes your expectations of what relationships can and should be,” she said in remarks to the reception crowd. “So it’s really important to learn what a healthy relationship looks like versus an unhealthy one.”

Also speaking at Thursday’s event were ATV’s Executive Director Kari Clark, who, like Kohlman, talked about the urgency of teaching teens to recognize signs of abuse in a relationship.

“In our opinion, you’re never too young,” Clark said. “The topic is sensitive, but you just don’t know what people are going to get into and behaviors that they’ve learned. And we want to make sure that everybody’s safe.”

Loveland Poet Laureate Lynn Kincanon was also on hand at Thursday’s reception to announce the winners but first complimented them for their “bravery” in publicly addressing the subject.

“I want to just end this by congratulating every single student who had the bravery to, one, sit down and write a poem, especially about this topic,” Kincanon said. “And also to submit a poem — that’s even much harder. And then to get up here and read a poem. It took me until the age of 50 to add a mic and read a poem.”

The contest was open to anyone in Larimer County aged 11-19 and there were a total of 21 submissions. Finishing second to Picard was Cadence Paulson for her poem “Breaking Free.” The third place finisher was Peyton DeGiovanni with “The Moon’s Secrets.”

All 21 poems are on display in the library’s teen section. For more information about Alternatives to Violence, visit alternativestoviolence.org.