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—Alumni:

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