Charles Brossy, Reporter
@cbrossycourant
Poetry Fest is an annual open mic poetry celebration run by the English Department. This year, it happened Tuesday, April 30th at 7 PM in the Wagner Room. 64 students submitted original poems to Ms. Brown, the Faculty Organizer at Poetry Fest. During the event, students were called up to read their poems in front of an audience of students, parents and faculty by the night’s host, Harvey Duplock.
At the end of the event, awards were given out for the following: Best Poem, Best Performance of a Poem, Most Artful Use of Language, and Best Imagery, as well as Honorable Mention distinctions.
Senior Kate Reeves, who was awarded Best Performance of a Poem, performed two poems at Poetry Fest, the first of which called ‘Gardening.’ “In this poem, I tried to play with the word choice of flowers to convey a larger reflection on human nature,” Kate said.
“A lot of the time, nature inspires me to write,” Kate said. “I like being outdoors, and when I was young I would go out and end up writing poems for hours upon end.”
Kate’s second poem was called, ‘Ode to Strong Women.’ “I wrote the poem for an event for a women’s empowerment group that I volunteer for which is a nonprofit group called LiveGirl,” Kate said.
Kate has many different ways she uses poetry. “Poetry is a way for me to voice a lot of my political opinions,” Kate said. “It is a very effective way to get a message across because you can mix and cross words or change around words to make it more creative and memorable.”
Sophomore Alexandra Gillespie was awarded an Honorable Mention at the end of Poetry Fest reading her poem ‘There is Hope.’
Alexandra wrote this poem for Ms. Brown’s English class. The assignment was to take a line from their favorite poem and expand that line. “I got that line and inspiration from one of my favorite poems called ‘Lost Generation’ by Jonathan Reed,” Alexandra said. “As far as rhythmic structures, I based a lot of my poem off of Maya Angelou’s poems who is very well known in the poetry world.”
Alexandra complimented Ms. Brown’s event, “My favorite part of Poetry Fest was hearing everybody express their own thoughts through use of words and different ways of saying things that don’t always have to be literate,” Alexandra said.
Winners:
Best Use of Imagery: Amelie L’Henaff
Most Artful Use of Language: Ali Cioffi
Best Performance of a Poem: Kate Reeves
Best Overall Poem: Kiera Russo
Honorable Mentions:
Evie Bradley, Clara Bloom, Katie Unger, Alexandra Gillespie, Sachi Krishna, Emma Uzgiris
