Caldwell Poetry Award Winners

The Caldwell Poetry Awards were announced by email and on social media on April 22, 2020, and thousands of dollars were awarded (thanks to the generous gift of Jeanne and Will M. Caldwell).

Per usual, the Caldwell Poetry Awards were divided up into two categories (written and performance) as well as broken up into two group of participants (first-year students and students leaders/alumni). Students submitted recorded performances this year. 

The winning written poems will also be included in this year’s Arts & Literary Journal, which
will be distributed in early fall.

Written—First  Year Students:

First Place: Brooke Lange for "The Wonderful Rules of Love," "Dust Mite," "The Female Pelvis," and "To Cure Period Cramps"

Second Place: Maddie Agne for "For Bakker*" (*Whose Name Is Protected), "Mary," and "Rumpelstiltskin"

Third Place: Steve Liu for "Promotion Day" and "Bedrock Winter"

Fourth Place: Ahmad Kady for "Cool Sexy Hairstyles for Men w/ Curly Hair" and "What I'm doing, and why"

Honorable Mentions:
Giselle Mills for "Diva" and "Self-Portrait of Who I Wish I Wasn’t"
Kayla Tate for "a poem of B's"
Cynthia Huang for "I like eating air with chopsticks on top of mountains"

Written—Alum:

First Place: Dylan Gilbert for "I am surprisingly alive" and "According to Legend"

Second Place: Alejandro Derieux Cerezo for "Manscaping" and "Descriptions of 'Pin Rug' by Mona Hatoum"

Honorable Mentions:
Kailyn Bondoni for "A Women's Sonnet For Our Past and Present Assassins"
Marjorie Gaber for "Apocalypse Poem"
Krysten Dorfman for "I love you, Malus pumila"

Performance

First-Year Students:

First Place: Steve Liu, "Promotion Day" (original) and "Digging" by Seamus Heaney (interpretive)

Second Place: Brooke Lange, "To Cure Period Cramps" (original)

Original Work—Alumni:

First Place: Dylan Gilbert, "God if i die don’t let it be by a white woman"

Second Place: Kailyn Bondoni, "the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up & the Girl Who Had to"

Third Place: Dominique Witten, "While the kids get high"

Interpretive Work—Alumni:

First Place: Kailyn Bondoni, "How to Succeed in Heartbreak" by Victoria Morgan

Second Place: Dominique Witten, "Dinosaurs in the Hood" by Danez Smith

Third Place: Dhriti Deb, "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

The Caldwell Poetry Award results were announced at the LHSP End-of-Year Festival on April 17, 2019, and thousands of dollars were awarded (thanks to the generous gift of Jeanne and Will M. Caldwell).

Per usual, the Caldwell Poetry Award was divided up into two categories (written and performance) as well as broken up into two group of participants (first-year students and
students leaders/alumni who are still at the University of Michigan).

The winning written poems will also be included in this year’s Arts & Literary Journal, which
will be distributed in early fall.

Written—First  Year Students:

First Place: Alejandro Derieux for: "Describe Fentanyl to MC Escher," "Cider Press," "Elephant Funeral," "Puddle Jumping"

Second Place: Niharika Kalia for "Rabbit Holes," "Tuesday Nights," "productive insomnia"

Third Place: Sidney Fisher for "Jazzed on Life," "How to Open Up to Your Therapist," "Stalled"

Fourth Place: Teuta Zeneli for "Galatea," "La Ville de Mes Reves," "Open Letter to My Father"

Honorable Mentions:
Charlie Pardales, "Untitled 11," "Ghazal for some lost love"
Annie Ning, "Chengdu"
Tommy Wiaduck, "A Midwest Story," "I'm Still Getting There"
Lauren Champlin, "A Lesson in Floating"

Written—Alum:

First Place: Dylan Gilbert for "After The Morning is Full by Pablo Neruda," "Everything Smooths in the Water But Me", "I wonder who I'm here to make room for," "the mother, the moon, and everything is holy"

Second Place: Laura Dzubay for "listening to boots of spanish leather at a gas station in leland, michigan," "listening to mitski on the drive to my mom's house"

Third Place: Alex Mullen for "I," "From Behind a Pilot’s Eyes," "The Sturdy Jackalope Observes His Reflection"

Honorable Mentions:
Jack Lancaster, "Palo Alto" "Naxolone"
Grace Coudal, "Unapologetic Apricot Jam"
Dominique Witten, "The Family Tree" 
Erin Wakeland, "Looking into My Backyard Fields"
Alexis Aulepp, "Yin and Yang"

Performance

Original Work—First-Year Students:

First Place: Rashi Watwani, "I am a poet"

Second Place: Charlie Pardales, "Poem of Numbness"

Original Work—Alumni:

First Place: Dylan Gilbert, "I've been writing this poem since I was 15"

Second Place: Grace Coudal, "I Make Out with the Water in the Evening"

Third Place: Alex Mullen, "You Are (Not) a Latin Lover"

Fourth Place: Jack Lancaster, "The Man Foretold"

Honorable Mention:
Dominique Witten, "Filling Out My Tindr Bio"

Interpretive Work:  

Tie for First Place: Dhriti Deb, "The Type," by Sarah Kay

Tie for First Place: Kailyn Bondoni, "The Fisherman Takes the Fish Home & Tells Her He Loves Her" by Brenna Twohy