Winners of poetry contest read works

April 15, 2005

Winners of poetry contest read works

by Katharine Quaranta

CARBONDALE, IL -- The winners of the Roxana Rivera Memorial Poetry Contest read their award-winning poems last month at Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Student Center. Judge Honoree Jeffers, assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma and author of The Gospel of Barbecue and Outlandish Blues, also read from her collection of poems.

The contest is co-sponsored by the Women’s Studies Program and the MFA Program in Creative Writing at SIUC.

In the graduate division, Ingrid Moody received a $50 Barnes and Noble gift certificate for her first-prize poem, "Feeding." Second prize, a $30 gift certificate, went to Joan Dy for her poem "for Billie." Kevin Kainulainen took third place and received a $20 gift certificate for "A Nightlight in My Mother’s House." Chad Parmenter and Chad Simpson both won honorable mentions for “A Blue Note to Louise Brooks” and “Ode to His Girlfriend, the Poet,” respectively. All five are students in the English department's creative writing program.

In the undergraduate division, Rebecca Ashley, a sophomore majoring in English, won the first-prize $50 gift certificate for "Go To Church With Me Once." Matthew Brown, a senior in English, was second for "On the Death of My Friend’s Daughter" and received a $30 gift certificate. Krishna Pattisapu, a freshman majoring in Journalism, received a $20, third-place gift certificate for “De Evita.” She also received an honorable mention for “Vodka,” along with Jonathan Travelstead, a junior in English, who was recognized for “Freudian Slip.”

Roxana Rivera was a first-year MFA student in the creative writing program at the time of her death in November 2003. SIUC’s Annual Women’s History Month Poetry Contest was re-named last year in her honor.