Kent State University’s Wick Poetry Center invites faculty, staff, students and other members of the community to Celebrating Our Own, the annual undergraduate and high school scholarship reading, on Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kent Student Center Kiva. The event is free and open to the public.
The event will honor Ian Bennett, winner of the Wick Poetry Center’s first annual National Teen Writing Contest. Bennett is a student at South Carolina Governor’s School of Arts and Humanities.
Winners of the undergraduate scholarship reading competitions include Kent State students Thomas Freeman, Leanna Lostoki, Mark Zurlo and Joshua Jones. High school student winners who will be recognized at the event are Ashley Spangler, Taylor Jacob and Kaley Utz.
Poet Carolyn Creedon, winner of the 2011 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, judged the contest.
“Celebrating Our Own is really at the heart of the Wick Poetry Center’s mission, which is to encourage and support new voices,” says Jessica Jewell, program manager for the Wick Poetry Center. “Each year, Wick awards more than $30,000 in tuition scholarships to Kent State. The Celebrating Our Own reading is our way of congratulating these extraordinary students and also giving the community a chance to hear Kent State’s emerging young poets.”
For more information about Celebrating Our Own and other Wick Poetry Center events, visit www.kent.edu/wick/readingseries.