They laughed, they cried, they were moved.

The audience at the 2012 Richard Eberhart Night of Poetry got an earful of poetry as the top poets in Austin Public Schools read aloud their works Monday night at Austin High School.

“It’s a great opportunity for all students,” said David Wolff, gifted and talented coordinator. Wolff said one of the best parts about the annual contest is the way students of all types could practice their creative expression.

For Rory Pollock, that creative expression means he could write about one of his favorite subjects: His family.

“(It was) pretty good,” the Woodson Kindergarten Center student said about his experience.

Rory’s poem, “My Family” took first place out of many Woodson entries. He made a list of words that rhymed at first, then he decided what he wanted to write about.

“It was quite hard,” he said.

His mother isn’t surprised at Rory’s achievements.

“He loves rhyming,” she said. “Plus he stood up there in front of all those people and read his poem. I couldn’t have done that at 6 years old.”

Some of the older students found the contest to be freeing. AHS junior Garrin Andrew Loveland’s poem, he said, was a reflection of what he felt “about who I am in the depths of my soul.”

“I write about things that I’m not really able to vocalize or express in any other way,” he said.

Garrin’s poem, “Ponderings in the Night,” took second place out of the high school entries.

“I’m very proud that I did that,” he said. “I actually predicted it.”

Each winner received a small gift of money from the Eberhart family, which created an endowment fund for the Austin Public Education Foundation, the interest of which is used for the contest.

Yet winning wasn’t the point, according to Southgate Elementary student Steven Conradt. Conradt took first place for his poem, “Monster in the Bushes.”

“You can really never lose at this,” he said. “It’s always fun.”