The Fund Supports Poetry and Music

The Rochester Oratorio Society (ROS) used a grant from The Cynipid Fund to support its 80th Anniversary concert which included readings from literary and poetic texts.  The grant supported the Society as it worked with another Rochester-based nonprofit, Writers and Books [WAB] (https://writersandbooks.org/) to sponsor a teen poetry contest on the theme of "freedom."  The winning poem by Bronwyn Capps, a 9th grader at School of the Arts in Rochester, is below.

The Society then partnered with composer Daryl Smith to have the winning poem arranged for the Society’s small choir, Resonanz. Here is a video of the performance at the Writers and Book Poetry Festival.  https://youtu.be/e60nQetQ0ec  The song was also performed at the Society’s 2026 mini-festival.

Freedom 

Freedom is the feeling of wind. 

Of running. 

Of leaving behind everything you know, 

for the hope of finding everything you want. 

Freedom is not behind bars; 

it has no price. 

It's a surging happiness, 

a choice. 

An uninterrupted wave, 

overshadowing uncertainty. It's a kind of love, 

with no friction. 

The unknown is frightening, 

yet with freedom, 

we plunge into it. 

Uncaged, 

held down only by our feet, 

free. 

Freedom is the feeling of leaving behind everything you know, 

for the hope of finding everything you want.