The College of Arts and Sciences hosted aspiring high school poets from the northeastern United States and southern Canada Saturday, as part of UB's first annual high school poetry contest.
Over 1,300 high school students submitted poems of 25 lines or less to the contest, according to Uday Sukhatme, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Winners of the contest received cash prizes as well as copies of English professor Carl Dennis' Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Practical Gods." Dennis served as the judge of the contest and addressed the students during the awards ceremony.
"One of the things you feel when you are writing is that no one is listening, and then after a while you imagine that you are writing for one unknown friend," said Dennis.
"There are probably more people listening than you think," he added.
Colin Stricklin, a senior from Amherst Central High School, won the contest with his poem. He said he was encouraged by his teacher to enter the contest.
"I never entered a poetry contest before," Stricklin said. "I wanted to see how I stacked up against other poets (to) see if I did anything worth reading."
Stricklin said he was impressed by what he saw and heard at UB on Saturday. Stricklin said UB is now one of his top three choices for college in the fall.
"I did not realize that Buffalo was such a center for that art form," he said.
Stricklin's new awareness of the poetry scene at UB is something Sukhatme said he hoped would happen for all winners of the contest.
"These kinds of occasions give students an opportunity just to see what university life is like," Sukhatme said. "Usually they like it."
"If you get high school students to visit the campus, chances are they will think of enrolling here," he said.
Two graduate students, Sarah Campbell and Jessica Smith, were paid a dollar per poem to read the entries and narrow those down to 50 poems. Dennis judged the 50 remaining poems.
Sukahtme said he was surprised at the high number of submissions to the contest.
He found out there were 1,300 poems submitted when he realized the graduate students earned $1,300.
"We were quite surprised with the strong response," he said.
Dennis, a writer-in-residence for the English department, said he had no specific qualifications in mind when narrowing the field to seven place-winning poems and 23 honorable mentions.
"I just had my own notion of what makes a good poem," said Dennis.
Joseph Conte, chairman of the English department, said he considered all 30 of the students whose poems made the final cut to be winners.
"When you have 1,300 applicants in the first year, it is really an honorable mention to have made it to the last cut," Conte said. "They are by no means less honorable poems."
Martha Malamud, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said the contest was important because she believes poetry can have a profound impact on people.
"Poetry can shape our feelings and reactions to things in ways we can not predict," said Malamud.
During the awards ceremony, student winners read each of their poems to the audience.
"Listening to this poetry being read in person gives them additional meaning," Conte said.
After the student winners read their poetry, Dennis reciprocated by reading some of his own work.
Anna Merchant, a fourth-place winner and senior from Manlius-Pebble Hill School in Dewitt, N.Y., said she enjoyed her poetry experience at UB.
"It was nice to do this," Merchant said. "It is not what I expected."
Other student winners shared similar sentiments, and said their participation in the contest highlighted some attractive aspects of UB.
"It has nice facilities," said Eleni Petrou, a junior from Williamsville North High School and fourth-place winner.
"It is good that they are trying to reach out to the community," she added.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
