2007 Lamont Younger Poets to Read
May 14, 2007
The prizewinning Lamont Younger Poets (l to r): Max, Samantha, Gillian and Sydney
The 2007 Lamont Younger Poets will read from their poems this Tuesday in the Academy Library at 7:00 p.m. The Lamont Younger Poets Prize honors poems of exceptional promise written by Exeter lowers and uppers. For the four lowers whose poems were selected by a faculty panel, this is just the beginning. "I want to be GOOD at writing, for a start," says Samantha, one of the prizewinners. "I want to write beautiful things someday that people will remember."
Max, another Lamont Younger Poet, sees poetry as a way "to probe who I am. If I'm writing poems for myself, it's usually because of some new emotion that I want to describe," he explains. He credits his dorm head, Ralph Sneeden, with tremendous inspiration. "I'd have to say that my favorite poet is Ralph Sneeden," he says. In addition to Sneeden's poetry, Max enjoys the works of Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot.
Gillian, another prizewinner, finds inspiration in other writers. "My favorite poet is Dylan Thomas, though I also like some of W.B. Yeats and Emily Dickinson. I also really like Eamon Grennan," she explains.
For Samantha, poetry is an outlet that comes easily. "Because none of my work is for class, it has a mind of its own and shows up whenever and in whatever form it wants to. I like the dance that poetry does, the mystery that's maintained because you can't just hammer it out – it's a story told very, very carefully," she says. "I liked the wonder of that, so I began to start writing poetry myself. Very slowly, of course, but I've always written longer pieces and told stories so it came quite naturally after a time." Samantha's winning poem "was written in about 17 minutes," she explains, "because I had a character stuck in my head, and a new format that I wanted to try out."
The Lamont Younger Poets prize was started in 2004 and commemorates the dedication of English instructor Rex McGuinn to student poetry at Exeter – particularly his encouragement of student poets at the ninth- and 10th-grade levels. In such a spirit, the Lamont Younger Poets Prize seeks to recognize promise as well as achievement in the early years of a student's developing craft. English instructor Todd Hearon, who founded the award, says, "We wanted to find a way to carry forward Rex McGuinn's example: fostering not only an excitement about poetry but also an encouragement to younger Exonian poets. I've been encouraged myself, at times amazed, by the resources and native talent that these students have been able to draw upon. In some cases we are hearing, for the first time, voices that may shape the scene of American letters in future years."
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