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Renowned Performance PoetNational Poetry Series Winner

Patricia Smith, lauded by critics as “a testament to the power of words to change lives,” is the author of six acclaimed poetry volumes: Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the 2013 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America; Blood Dazzler, a National Book Award finalist; Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series winner; Close to Death; Big Towns, Big Talk; and Life According to Motown.

A four-time National Poetry Slam champion, Smith was featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and has performed her work around the world. She has written and performed two one-woman plays. She is the author of Africans in America, a companion volume to the PBS documentary that Publishers Weekly called “a monumental research effort wed with fine writing…ultimately shaped by Smith’s beautiful narrative.”

Smith’s work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, Granta, TriQuarterly, Gulf Coast, Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, Villanelles, The Incredible Sestina Anthology and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African-American Poetry. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes.

Smith penned the award-winning children’s book Janna and the Kings. She edited the crime fiction anthology Staten Island Noir, which includes her story “When They are Done with Us,” winner of a Mystery Writers of America award.

Smith is a Cave Canem faculty member, a professor of English at CUNY/College of Staten Island, and a faculty member of the Sierra Nevada MFA program and the Stonecoast Maine MFA program. In 2006, Smith was inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.

High School

Poetry

Contest

English Department | 2014-15Gannon University

o

Thursday, April 23, 2015, 7:30 p.m. Waldron Campus Center (The Yehl Room)Gannon University

Guest speaker Patricia Smith For more information email: moore001@gannon.edu or visit: www.gannon.edu/poetrycontest

Free / Open to the public

Rules • Each student may enter 1 or 2 poems; each poem is

restricted to 50 lines or fewer.

• Poems may be about any topic and in any form and must be the original work of the student.

• Poems must be typed.

• The student’s name, address, phone number, email address and grade in school must appear in the top left corner of each poem.

• The student’s school, school’s address, school’s phone number, and teacher’s name and email address must appear in the top right corner.

• Poems will not be returned; students should not send their only copies.

• Poems must be postmarked by February 1, 2015.

Send poems through regular mail to:Berwyn Moore, Professor of EnglishAttn: High School Poetry ContestGannon University 109 University SquareErie, PA 16541

National High School Poetry Contest 2014-15 High School Poetry ContestEntrants must be a high school student or a home-schooled student in grades nine through twelve. Students from anywhere in the United State may enter.

The top three winners in each contest will receive a monetary award, a signed book by distinguished poet Patricia Smith, and publication in the Awards Night program.

First Place: $100.00Second Place: $75.00Third Place: $50.00

Poems may also win Honorable Mention awards.

Winners will be notified by email in early April 2015. Awards will be presented at the annual English Awards Night.

“I was weeping for the beauty of poetry when I reached the end of the final poem” -Edward Sanders, National Poetry Series Judge

Praise for Patricia Smith’s poetry:“Reading poems like these, overflowing with life but contained by art, makes us all feel a little bit helpless. These poems are blessings that will move like white light through your veins.” -American Book Review

Gannon UniversityAnnual

English Awards Night

UM/GUP/2013/1000