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Lafayette’s celebration of National Poetry Month includes readings from students, open mic nights, and interaction with the acclaimed poets who judged Lafayette’s student poetry competitions. All events are free and open to the public.
This year’s winnerof the Jean Corrie Poetry Competition is English major Rachel Heron ’09 (Downingtown, Pa.). Meredith Castor ’10 (Chalfont, Pa.) and English major Megan Kaesshaefer ’08 (Philadelphia, Pa.) received honorable mentions. The competition was judged by Steve Myers, professor of English and chair of humanities at DeSales University.
Jennifer Aranda ’07 (Paramus, N.J.), an English and women’s studies double major, won the MacKnight Black Poetry Competition. Maggie Oberrender ’07 (Bridgewater, N.J.), an English and French double major, received an honorable mention. Renowned poet David Lehman served as judge.
“National Poetry Month brings remarkable poets to campus, celebrates the enormous vitality of our student writers, and offers a forum in which our talented students perform their own work before an appreciative audience,” says Lee Upton, professor of English and writer-in-residence. “Winners of the two poetry competitions precede the guest poets at the microphone to read their own poetry. It should be an unforgettable experience for them to share the spotlight with these remarkable poets.”
Poetry Month events open with the Creative Writing Students’ Poetry Reading 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 4 at Gilbert’s Café. An open mic night will follow.
Participating students include English majors Ross Burlingame ’09 (Lancaster, Pa.), Delia Culton ’07 (Iselin, N.J.), Michelle Hunter ’07 (Burlington, Ontario, Canada), Hayley Rosado ’09 (Montclair, N.J.), and Edward Suczewski ’09 (Chatham, N.J.); psychology majors Emily Giannotta ’09 (Simsbury, Conn.) and Tobie Langsam ’07 (Massapequa, N.Y.); anthropology and sociology major Veronica Canto-Ponce ’07 (La Jolla, Calif.); mathematics-economics major Jill Carey ’09 (Sparta, N.J.); mathematics major Courtney Dixon ’08 (Riverside, Conn.); economics and business major Emily Garner ’09 (Fairfax Station, Va.); biology major Erin Murray ’09 (Hockessin, Del.); art major Diana White ’07 (Mahwah, N.J.); and Valerie Faure ’09 (Sands Point, N.Y.).
The winners of the Jean Corrie Poetry Competition will read their poems at a reading and ice cream social 4:10 p.m. Tuesday, April 17 in Marquis Hall, faculty dining room. Myers will read some of his own work following the students’ reading. The Corrie competition includes entries from first-year students, sophomores, and juniors and is supported by the Academy of American Poets and the department of English.
“To think that a poet like Steve Myers took my words seriously and that he actually enjoyed them was incredibly moving and incredibly humbling,” says Heron.
Her winning poem put a new spin on a well-known classic.
“The title of my poem, ‘Leaves of Glass,’ is a play on Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass,’ and it came to me before the poem itself did,” says Heron. “I was struck by the way a simple word-change took something organic and made it sparkly and shiny. It reminded me of what I see as a very human approach to the world – how can we take what we have and make it better with our knowledge and our technology. The poem I wrote explores the results of that drive – the things that we have to lose in order to ‘perfect’ things.”
The winners of the MacKnight Black Poetry Competition will read their poems 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 24 in the Kirby Hall of Civil Rights auditorium. Open to seniors, the competition is named for MacKnight Black, a 1916 graduate of Lafayette, who at the time of his death in 1931 was one of America’s most significant poets. Lehman will hold a question-and-answer session at 4:10 p.m. in Marquis Hall, faculty dining room, as well as, read his own work following the students’ reading.
“I felt pretty amazing, actually, and proud of myself,” Aranda says about winning the competition. “I have worked very hard these past years at Lafayette, and it feels wonderful when someone congratulates you on such accomplishments. I just want to keep writing now.”
Aranda didn’t have to look far for poetic inspiration.
“‘Home Sweet Home’ is about a girl who reconnects with her home – the ocean,” she says. “It’s like two playmates reuniting after years of separation; nothing seems to have changed, just age. I was inspired to write this poem over the past winter break because I really wanted to visit my family in the Dominican Republic. My father is from the island, and I would travel there with him very frequently as a child. Since I have been in college, I have had no time to return home to the Dominican Republic, and what I miss most, besides my family of course, is the ocean.”
Many of the additional National Poetry Month events at Lafayette are collaborations with Writing Organization Reaching Dynamic Students (W.O.R.D.S.).
“The student group W.O.R.D.S. has enlivened campus cultural life with their readings and other events, and their offerings during the month promise to showcase the vitality of some of our most committed student writers,” says Upton.
For more information on the month’s events, contact Upton at x5250.
National Poetry Month schedule of events:
An authority on W.B. Yeats, Myers is author of a book on Yeats’ poetry of the 1890s as well as scholarly articles on the poet. He also is author of full-length poetry collection Memory’s Dog and poetry chapbook Work Site. His poems have appeared or will soon appear in Atlanta Review, Bellingham Review, Cream City Review, Dalhousie Review, Miller’s Pond, West Branch, Rattle, New Letters, River City, Paterson Literary Review, Fresh Ground, Two Rivers Review, The Raven Chronicles, and Potpourri.
Lehman received his Ph.D. in English from Columbia University and attended Cambridge University as a Kellett Fellow. He is currently the poetry coordinator for the MFA writing program at The New School for General Studies. He is the author of several collections of poems, including When a Woman Loves a Man, Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man with James Cummins, The Evening Sun, The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry, Valentine Place, Operation Memory, and An Alternative to Speech. He is creator and series editor of The Best American Poetry, and is general editor of the University of Michigan Press’s Poets on Poetry series.