HAMPDEN-SYDNEY COLLEGE – ENGLISH DEPT.
CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF POETRY FROM STUDENTS
Congratulations
to 2013 Award Winner John Taylor Pannill
The
Sallie Wright Harrison Poetry Award was established in 1998 by an alumnus, in
memory
of Mrs. Harrison, and as a testimony to her love of poetry and teaching. This
fund has been
endowed in order to further promote the creation of poetic writings by
students at the College. All students are strongly encouraged to try
their hand at this form
of
expression, which may be different from what they have previously attempted,
and
which they may well find enjoyable as well as enriching. To this end, the
poetry fund
generates an annual cash award for a Hampden-Sydney College student
who has
proven
by his authorship to possess a genuine interest and creativity in verse.
“The poet’s language is a faithful echo of his
feelings.
It is emotion – warm, generous, lofty
emotion, inspired by a perception
of
the beautiful and the grand, such as seems to raise him who feels it
above
the sordidness and petty concerns of ordinary life –
which
seems to be the essence of poetry…”
Prof. George Tucker, 1830
Selection
and Presentation
The
award will be made to a Hampden-Sydney College student who has demonstrated
competitive
writing ability, by participation in the English Department’s periodic poetry
contest.
The
Chairman of the English Department will set the amount of the award and may
select a
recipient
as often as annually. The prize (most recently in the amount of $500) will be
awarded
at Spring Convocation. The donor, who will remain anonymous,
will
be informed of the designee each year.
Letter and Certificate for the
Winner
At
Convocation, the student winner will receive: (1) a check or letter from the
Business
Office,
confirming the dollar amount of the award; and (2) a framed certificate,
with the following inscription in
calligraphic form:
Established
in 1998 by an alumnus in memory of Sallie Wright Harrison, as testimony to
her
love of poetry and teaching, this award is presented to a student who has
proven by
his authorship
to possess a genuine interest and creativity in verse.
Awarded
on (date) at
Hampden-Sydney College
To (name of
student)
__________________________ ________________________
********************
SWH POETRY AWARD WINNERS
2013………..John
Taylor Pannill
Math
Class
Little civilizations of numbers
Greek letters and odd symbols
Divided into classes
Of subscript and common denominators
Squared and square-rooted
A brave .3 wielding a parenthesis
Wages war on the superscript 2
Squaring it from above
While X struggles below
To be found
Crammed next to a slope
That's coming to its end point
And over the hills of bell curves
Through the deserts of scatter plots
Sits Y having an identity crisis
Always equaling this
Or being equal to that
It spends its days talking
To imaginary #'s graphing itself,
And reciting love poems to π
2012……….Christopher Griggs
Topophilia
for a Goldfish
A
measly gallon of water, shape of a cube,
Incased
in glass, my one and only home;
I
hope one will understand that I am only
Partially
upset, I breathe the stale liquid,
Love
the miracle of floating. It’s easy!
The
food is regular and gently digested,
And
my cellmate is my twin. We make kissy
Faces
in the dark, and in the light
We
flaunt our bedroom eyes at anyone,
Giants
through the glass, our Benefactor,
His
eyes, unlike ours, anchored somewhere else.
When
we bathe (but we always bathe) in darkness,
When
we are not playing with ourselves,
We
hypothesize the origin of blue,
His
blue, his glaciated consciousness,
Which
we play at plumbing, but never plumb;
O
Benefactor, your would-be definers ache.
In
your absences, we have discussed the likelihood
That
you are sad, that your experience
Is
moraine, and that a formidable mass
Has
left you, starkly corrugated and frozen—
You
see how much we care! (And see how much
We
learn from the books on the table: Icy Tundra.)
Benefactor,
you are as much a place
As
this water; and I often wonder at
The
distinction, my halfhearted satisfaction—
Halved
because of clotted glass, fences,
Hearted
because your bigger heart exists,
And
glass is, after all, only glass.
Are
our theories unfounded, Benefactor?
Do
you feel every facet of the verb deserted?
Dip
your hand in the tank, so we will know
If
you are lonely; your pulse disturbs the water.
Briefly,
you are the molecules we sift
For
sustenance—you are the spaces, too.
2011………Matt MacFarland
It
will be the same for both of us
He
tossed the mulch like shrapnel, lifted it
from a
wheelbarrow mountain of shattered
bark
to the dirt path under his boots,
an
explosion of dust gushing out
each
time the weight of mulch came down.
There
was a rhythm to the work:
expected
clash of steel on steel,
scrape
of the tines against the barrow’s bowl
which,
every time, gouged at my ears,
relentless
as gunfire. When the pile
was
depleted, I hauled back up the hill
for
more, shoveled the mess in, and turned
back,
tripping over roots and rocks to his tired
form.
Old as I was, he still seemed to loom
over
me, a giant, somehow more
than
what he was: ultimately, a man
leaning
against the handle of a busted old pitchfork,
dusk
falling around him at the edge
of
woods we thinned ourselves.
It
was his eyes that spelled exhaustion,
the
brim of his hat that seemed to weigh him down
most.
War, I thought. I have never been
to
war. Neither had he,
but
something in his leaning form
told
me of what war on the body was like—
that
any man, at the fleeing shapes
of
the foe, collapses, shivered spear
slipping to
the dirt.
He
would have made a good solider,
I
guess, except that he would have felt
too
much in his bones for whatever soul
stood
across the line where no one crosses,
that
pale expanse between your ranks
and
theirs. Somewhere in that plain
Aeneas
flees with father and son,
his
wife’s ghost urging him to run.
Is
this what it means to father—that above
all
prior duty, he must fling himself
through
the bronze-sheathed masses
with
past and future in tow?
He
pauses now, and tells me this
is
good work, the work souls are made of.
He
buries the pitchfork in the mulch and lifts.
2010……… Matt MacFarland
Leonids
That
early winter we found the wind thin
and
biting—the way a wire fence pricks quick
into
skin—in the twilight morning, in the after-
moon
night. I stared up through astigmatic
eyes,
sifting the prisms of light from the lot’s
lamps
and asked you where Orion’s belt
cinched
the black in-between, and how Cygnus
filled
the sky’s silence with her first (her last)
throaty ode,
thrown against our eyes and catching
in
our chests. You would find the hunter for me but not
the
swan and her death lament, not the words that heard
death
breathe hot against her neck the color
of
the way moon-shine whitens the lot lights
curving
up through the night air.
You
whispered something like I’m cold
and
that you wanted to leave the stars alone,
that
even such great distance as theirs
closed
your throat up tight with an awful terror.
You
said the fire would be closer and warmer than dead
suns
spinning and spending their heat on the vacuum-void,
but I
held fast, mooring you tight to me,
wrapping
your fingers and fears around mine
and
around the breathy, feathered quiet.
Then
glidingly the stars began sliding
gentle
like headlights glinting along a highway—
some
quick, some unhurried, some looked like they were
flashing
straight for us, and I felt your hand tighten.
2009...............Clay Whittaker
Sunday
Morning
When
the spring comes
there
is a breath
deep
and full. It
hums in
the wings of insects.
When
the snow melts and dries,
it
was there all along,
but
hidden from the eyes
of
the birds long gone, but soon-returning.
And
among the grasses
waving
in the warm wind
rabbits
play with snakes
a
game that has one winner.
Young
saplings reach above
the
begging arms of weed stalks,
their
learning-to-walk branches
dense
with unseasoned, babyskin
leaves
that crumble wet
in
the palm of my hand.
2008………….....Samuel C. Rosten
Fairhope
in Spring
The
pink flush of azaleas
Covers
gardens and borders side walks,
With
long grandpa arms of live oaks
Hanging
moss over lazy streets.
Fishermen
and sailors on the town pier
Stretch
out over the calm brackish water.
A
child gasps, scanning
Through
the public binoculars,
At
Mobile’s skyline across the bay.
Wives
and children waltz
Down
the sidewalks of old downtown,
With
Tulips and Stargazer Lilies.
Old
men grin in the barbershop and,
Out
from the little league park,
Ghosts
march, each innocent’s past.
A
Magnolia’s white brilliance
Is
ignored by children climbing its thick branches.
Next
to a yacht club, filled with docked sailboats
Sounding
light, hollow tinks as they sway,
A
Pelican skims the placid waters,
Swoops
up sharply, then dives for its blue mullet dinner.
At
night, the streets empty.
If
it’s fall or winter, the trimmed sweet gums
Are
covered with sparkling lights.
There
is only a community college nearby;
But,
on Memorial Day the wild ones have returned.
They
talk loudly at the pub and the café by the sailboats,
Snubbing
their noses at the sleepy town.
The
old clock stands handsomely on the corner,
While
the dawn soon lights its brilliance,
And
city workers rise to maintain our beauty.
2007………………Stephen Leo English
To
My 21
I
was planted in the Tobacco fields
of
Eastern Carolina, reared up
with
a gut full of smoke,
sixteen
years before America
was
told to never forget.
And
so, I grew; my rough leaves
rubbing
against one another
like
pages of a Dickens’ novel
whose
words bled black into
the
sandy, fertile soil.
Subsiding
on words like
French
fertilizer: Dumas, Duras,
I
grew; my rough leaves
reaching
north where the tea
turned
bitter and the wind cold.
Reaching
north to escape this
Faulkner-weed,
this rampant
overbearing
shadow, I grew;
what
place is there for a
voice
that can only mimic?
Exhaling
that belly full of
smoke,
like three before, and
so
many after, I bloom;
uproot
to realize the ground is
only
good enough here.
Here
in the tobacco fields
of
Eastern Carolina where
my
family dies, black-lunged,
where
I stay rooted and solemn
reading
words like Seven-dust.
2006………………Kyle Ewers
Worn
In
Your
oldest shoes
Have
beaten the odds
And
gotten you home before curfew;
Tracked
mud into the basement and
Discovered
dog piles on your lawn.
They
carried you up the rock
That
overlooks the river,
And
took a relaxing nap
While
you dove into the cool water.
How
did they navigate the mud,
The
rocks, and the piles
When
you never bothered
To
tie them.
2005……………..John Ramsay
Camera
A
camera paraphrases life,
freezing
circumstance with
calculated
depressions
of
the shutter release.
Bits
of metal, plastic, and glass
form
a time machine
incapable
of predicting the future,
only
revisiting the past.
Film
is pulled from its back
like
a fetus
delivered
too soon from the womb.
The
pictures are underdeveloped
overexposed
and
poorly prepared to do their job.
A
slim pane of glass
focuses
the intended image
and
preserves it.
A
mere reflection of reality.
Odorless.
Tasteless. Silent.
The
camera’s product is stillborn,
And
folks who only exist in pictures
are
still dead.
2004……………Alec Ridley
Linear and Painterly
In
one or another way.
It’s
linear or painterly
And
I don’t know which one am I.
In
Germany there is a word
What
here would take a page.
Ah,
Martin Luther had
A
certain rhetorical style
And
what if maybe once did I
Use
it for my own?
Please
don’t tell me how to paint;
Your
wall will be
Blue,
all in good time.
2003…………..Greg Justice
Moonsong
You
poor moon.
You’ve
got that weary look in your eye
From
people carving craters into your face
With
old battered words.
But
full and flowering,
You’ve
still got it in you
To
light my pen.
The
waves don’t seem to mind,
Beaten
to exhaustion as they are too.
Still
they go on,
Licking
your light,
To
you as you are to the sun
—and
I, to both of you the same.
In
the end I am most weary,
For
the weight of all human longing and joy,
Summed
up in your sandy milklight,
Beats
down on me,
Trying
to squeeze out some drop
That
is mine.
After
all, everyone else has taken that from you.
I’m
glad to see your old habits still reign,
for the white of my paper
Carries
on the tradition,
Bouncing
up thrice-reflected light,
—excepting
of course the scars
carved
by my black pen.
I
hope I didn’t ruin you with this tattoo.
2002.............Billy Ciucci
Spears
Mountain
These
new advisors, gushers, poets—
They
have to be submerged in Nature
Somewhere
to connect:
They
cannot tell what then they were,
Up
in the Grand Titans once where he
Uncovered
a mossy little squirrel’s skull, or
Striding
along the strand at Key West
Making
song love to the salty sea.
O
Organic Epiphany,
You
smell of earth and sand,
Like
a place where a building used to stand.
Like
a place where a building had to fall.
Like
a jagged boulder that doesn’t fit,
So
wet pilgrims can curl up under it.
I
was on Spears Mountain last summer.
We
sat back to back to back—
A
Greek cross—
Three
people I love and me.
The
sun dropped.
Distant
air blushed yellowred white,
Rings
of bleeding light pierced by happy peaks.
I
could almost say something.
I
could almost feel a wafer on my tongue.
I
could almost reach out and grab the sky
In
handfuls,
Like
it was mud, or paint, and smear it
Over
all our faces so that it would dry and crumble
When
we smiled.
So
that we could take little pieces of it
Home
with us underneath our fingernails.
2001.............David Wickham
The
Web, The Box, and the Machine
This
spider web of
Grand
design catches all
With
a gentle, calculated
Touch,
or a quick
Explosion.
This
toolbox of
Honest
joints and obedient
Bones
is piloted by
a
short, fat foreman,
Who
blames all losses
On
the weaker link
At
the other end.
This
love machine strokes,
Caresses
and sifts its
Way
into her pulsating
Heart,
sending streams of
Electricity
down her bent
Spine.
This
web; this box;
this
machine; this hand.
2000.............Ian Sheu
In
Hiding
(Baden-Baden,
Germany, 1943)
"Silence
the child!"
a
heated whisper shouts.
The
door opens
a
seeming mile away.
The
creak of entrance
first
made Little Love cry.
Momma
does everything:
sugar,
comforts, baubles.
Every
creak above us,
every
light and shadow,
agonizes
the unintentional betrayal.
We
silently scream,
"Nothing
nere,
but
a moldy sack of potatoes
and
salted pork gone bad."
Mother
frantic to silent Little Love:
croons,
cradles, breast.
The
steps slow above us,
dully
drumming, thinking.
We
force our gaze ahead.
A
hand holding a shawl
passes
over my lap,
silences
the child.
Dust
slowly falls as
the
steps stop,
deciding,
then decide;
there
is nothing of worth
in
the cellar.
We
are saved
and
our secret safe.
We
now look at Little Love limp.
All
the same as before,
silent.
1999.............James Thatcher
Spiritual
(Listening to Eric Dolphy)
The
two dimensional man in someone else's three dimensional space;
How
does the misfit communicate with God?
He
babbles aloud, pokes and prods his weary imagination,
thinks
of how thin he is, lying here lonely,
looking
for a Leader.
Alas
God appears; static syllogism, paper idol...
This
cannot be true; there is more to the "I AM" than meets the eye.
There
is tropical growth
control
and abandon
the
thinness of happiness
the
thickness of insecurity
And
before all this, the surprisingly radical quest,
to
be loved.