Sylvia Plath at Smith *

 

Award: $500

Judge for 2009: Paul Muldoon

Submissions accepted: Oct. 1 - Dec. 1, 2008

One poem per student, maximum of 25 lines.

No entry fee. Application form required.

 

Entry Form:

Entry Form

 

 

 

High School Prize

An annual prize for sophomore & junior girls in Massachusetts


CONGRATULATIONS to the 2009 Prizewinners!

Winner:

Taylor Clarke (Phillips Academy), for her poem "Charlotte Mason"

Finalists:

Gabriella Fee (Walnut Hill High School), for "Nobska"

Stephanie Saywell (Lawrence Academy), for "Candlewick"

Bryna Cofrin-Shaw (Stonleigh Burnham), for "Things Change Size"


Read the winning poems here!


In addition to the $500 cash prize awarded to the winner, she and three finalists will receive signed copies of Horse Latitudes: Poems, by Paul Muldoon.

Winner & finalists will also spend the day at Smith College, meeting privately with Mr. Muldoon to discuss their poetry, and presenting their winning work at his evening reading on April 21, 2009.

Sponsored by the Poetry Center at Smith College
The Poetry Center at Smith College was founded in 1998 with the goals of bringing distinguished poets to the College, creating a video archive of their readings, promoting an appreciation of poetry in the larger community through outreach to schools. The Poetry Center celebrates Smith’s long and illustrious relationship with such world-renowned poets as Sylvia Plath, W.H. Auden, Richard Wilbur, and Adrienne Rich.

About the Judge

Paul MuldoonPlaywright, essayist, editor, translator, librettist, children’s book author, teacher, musician, and, foremost, poet, Paul Muldoon has won many distinguished awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. Born and raised in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, in a house without books, he has lived in the U.S. for over twenty years. Generally regarded as the leading Irish poet of his generation, Muldoon’s sidelong wit, formal ingenuity, and linguistic exuberance are legendary. He is poetry editor for The New Yorker and teaches at Princeton University

View the 2008 winners

"Oh god, if this is life, half heard, with the god-eyed tall-minded ones, let me never go blind, or get cut off the agony of learning..."
From Sylvia Plath's journal, Smith College, April 27, 1953