Carl Albert State College (CASC) recently concluded its eighth annual poetry contest, inviting students from Sallisaw, Poteau, and the online community to submit original works throughout February.
“As we began working on this year’s poetry contest, we tossed several titles and themes around but finally settled on ‘Unleash,’ inviting students to unleash the creativity within them,” said Susan Hill, CASC Fine Arts and Communications instructor. “We were so pleased with the result and quality of poems we received.”
After an initial review by CASC Fine Arts and Communications faculty, the top five poems were submitted to Dr. Shawn Holliday, a writer and English professor at Northwestern Oklahoma State University (NWOSU). Dr. Holliday, who also serves as Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Director of NWOSU’s Master of Arts in American Studies program, ranked the finalists. His works include Thomas Wolfe and the Politics of Modernism, Lawson Fusao Inada, and The Oklahoma Poets Laureate: A Sourcebook, History, and Anthology. Dr. Holliday’s articles and reviews have appeared in various literary and academic journals, including Southern Studies, The Thomas Wolfe Review, and The Chronicles of Oklahoma.
The winners of this year’s CASC poetry contest are:
- First Place: Ava Boyd of Sallisaw
- Second Place: Emily Carlucci of Howe
- Third Place: Kayleigh Chitwood of Howe
- Honorable Mention: Ashley Bird of Westville and Hannah Edwards of Sallisaw
In addition to the contest, CASC’s Fine Arts and Communication Division published an anthology featuring 45 poems by 32 students, all of whom can now proudly call themselves published poets. Copies of the anthology are available to the public at the Joe E. White Library on the Poteau campus and the Delores Mitchell Library on the Sallisaw campus.
