18th Annual Caldwell Poetry and Recitation Award Winners: April 2024
The Caldwell Poetry and Recitation Award winners were announced at LSWA's End-of-Year Festival on April 17, 2024 and, thanks to a generous gift from Jeanne and Will M. Caldwell, monetary prizes were given to each winner. The winning written poems will also be published in this year's Arts & Literary Journal, which will be distributed in the fall.
You may notice this year's slight name change, which reflects our expansion of the performance categories. Now, in addition to original and interpretive poems, students also have the option to perform other oral recitations such as artist talks, songs, and storytelling. Of course, students were still able to submit written poems, and all the cateogories were further divided between first year students and student leaders/alumni.
Please join us in congratulating the winners listed below!
Written Poetry
First Year Students
First Place: Aileen Dosev for “Gen-Z’s Hail Mary” and “AP Post-Collapse History”
Second Place (tied): Charlie Shang for "transition" and "call me"
Second Place (tied): Kenneth Su for “The O in HOME” and "Sentence"
Third Place (tied): Ashley Wang for “Self-portrait as profanity” and “I’m in the Corpse in my Backyard”
Third Place (tied): Noah Chang for “The Legal of Rocks, a Legend”
Third Place (tied): Cecilia Bermudez for “ribbons/butterflies”
Third Place (tied): Katherine Saunders for “like my mothers” and “one-word-system”
Honorable Mention: Daniel Johnson for “Mr. Charisma” and “Enter I, Sisyphus”
Honorable Mention: Ace Bell for “I Love You, Fall”
Student Leaders and Alumni
First Place: Baz Crow for “miscellany (in response),” “auld lang syne,” and “sunday night football”
Second Place: Alex McCullough for “Komorebi” and “The Way It Was—died on June 26th, 2016”
Third Place (tied): Roma Uzzaman for “CORDUROY PLANET”
Third Place (tied): Wyatt McColough for “Cleanup on I-90,” “Anthropomorphism Elektra,” and “An Ode To The Two Squirrels Chasing Each Other In Your Local Park”
Fourth Place: Julia Zhang for “Where Do You Bury Birds in New York City?”
Fifth Place: Hailey Love for "Braids"
Original Poetry Performances
First Year Students
First Place: Audrey Whitton for “Motorcycle Self-Care”
Second Place: Ace Bell for “To Every Human Who Has Ever Wept”
Student Leaders and Alumni
First Place (tied): Tyae Grant for "Leftovers"
First Place (tied): Hailey Love for “What Makes Us Poetic”
Second Place: Aman Khandaker for “The Shoes That Remain”
Third Place: Benjamin Colding for "Trap House"
Interpretive Poetry Performances
First Year Students
First Place: Audrey Whitton for "From Down The Hall I See You" by Jim Whitton
Student Leaders and Alumni
First Place: Tyae Grant for “You Talk So Proper” by @heyJusten on TikTok
Second Place: Elizabeth Blackwell for "Ode to the Corpse Flower" by Benjamin Garcia
Artist Talks (new category for 2024!)
First Year Students
First Place (tied): Juliette Todd for “Over/Under/Through the Canvas”
First Place (tied): Hannah Kryzhan for "Fructiphobia"
Second Place: Olivia Humphrey for “Marine Correlations”
Student Leaders and Alumni
First Place: Laila Burke-Graves for "My Dream"
Second Place: August Mashburn for “Glitched Emotions in Quarantine Housing”
Third Place: Benjamin Colding for “My Perceptions Of Myself”
Non-Poetry Recitations (new category for 2024!)
First Year Students
First Place: Jordan Pecar for "Forever Falling Behind"
Student Leaders and Alumni
First Place: Maddy Ringo for “Til the Last Subway Train (falcon song)” and “Mother Tongue”
Second Place: Aman Khandaker for “From the Height of an Airplane”
