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“I’m interested in doing some really fresh kinds of writing, really raw stuff that will make the average readers rethink the world around them, hit them right between the eyes so they sit back and really think and feel, or maybe something that might drive some of the weaker ones off the deep end with a full-blown case of brain-bubbles,” says the award-winning poet, a senior from Binghamton, N.Y., and a graduate of Binghamton High School.
“Christian Rose writes poetry that is marvelously complex and compelling,” says Lee Upton, professor of English and Lafayette’s writer-in-residence. “The images that he creates are haunting and resonant.”
Christian Rose overcame self-doubt to win Lafayette’s MacKnight Black Poetry Prize. His poem “Fish” was deemed best entry by the judge of the competition, Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet. The annual competition, open to Lafayette seniors, is named for MacKnight Black, a 1916 graduate of the College, who at the time of his death in 1931 was one of America’s most significant poets.
Rose, an avid writer, penned “Fish” last summer. He was hesitant at first to enter it in the competition.
“In the back of my mind I thought about submitting it, but I never really thought it would win,” he says. “I thought the subject and the overall doomed intensity of the thing would scare judges off. If I hadn’t won this prize the poem would be gathering dust in an old notebook in a drawer.”
Earning the high regard of Komunyakaa, winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, has provided further inspiration to Rose to pursue the craft of writing.
“I really feel honored to have been chosen by such a decorated and gifted poet as Yusef Komunyakaa,” says Rose, who is majoring in English and minoring in government and law. “I think winning this award has given me more confidence in myself as a writer. I’ll be writing more often as a result.”
As part of Lafayette’s celebration of National Poetry Month, Komunyakaa will read his work on campus April 15, joined by Rose and three students who earned honorable mention in the MacKnight competition, Natalie Papailiou ’99 of Middletown, N.J., Scott Rosen ’99 of West Milford, N.J., and Mark Sokoloff ’99 of Eastchester, N.Y.
Rose has also merited the approbation of Lee Upton, an accomplished poet and critic who is professor of English and the first Lafayette faculty member to have the title writer-in-residence.
“Christian Rose writes poetry that is marvelously complex and compelling,” Upton says. “The images that he creates are haunting and resonant.”
Rose says, “Professor Upton’s creative writing class is what has given me the ability to shape some strange thoughts into poem form. Without her class I don’t think I would have won this award.”
Rose also credits Kenneth Briggs, a former editor at The New York Times and a visiting part-time instructor in English and religion at Lafayette, with having a positive effect on his writing.
Rose published two poems in last year’s edition of The Marquis, the College’s annual magazine of student poetry, prose, photography and artwork.
Rose is finding another outlet for his writing as an intern at The Express-Times in Easton, where he has written several front-page stories.
“They’ve given me a great opportunity to write stories and get a hands-on feel for journalism,” he says.
Whatever his future holds, Rose is intent on finding his own literary voice.
“Right now my long-term goal is to end up writing books or even screenplays,” he says. “I’m interested in doing some really fresh kinds of writing, really raw stuff that will make the average readers rethink the world around them, hit them right between the eyes so they sit back and really think and feel, or maybe something that might drive some of the weaker ones off the deep end with a full blown case of brain-bubbles.”
Another Side of Christian
He is a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity.