Santa Clara writers reap their rewards at local poetry contests

By Patricia Ho

Despite what a rather subdued on-campus literary scene might suggest, there are students who take an active interest in writing poetry and fiction. This quarter's McCann Short Story, Tamara Verga Poetry Prize and The Shipsey Poetry Prize have surfaced four such students.

The English Departments' Creative Writing Program holds the contests, open to all Santa Clara undergraduates, each year. Cash awards to the tune of $100 are offered, in addition to, of course, the sense of personal satisfaction gained from having one's work recognized by others.

Prior to entering the contest, freshman Tanya Landsberger rarely let friends read her fiction. "I didn't let anyone read this story until I won this contest," she laughed. "Now I figure, if I won a prize for it, it should be good enough to read."

The seeds for Landsberger's short story, "One Summer," were planted in a fiction writing class she took last quarter. "[Professor Claudia McIsaac] gave us an opening, and the assignment was to develop a whole story from that," she explained. The unassuming sentence, "My brother and I crawled through the window" eventually lead to a drama about pair of siblings who, on a dare from the neighborhood kids, break into an old lady's house. Although Landsberger usually writes humorous fiction, she did grow attached to the characters in the serious "One Summer," using them again in several offshoot stories. Landsberger describes her writing process as "haphazard," explaining that she usually writes in bursts, followed by revisions. "I get ideas down and try to form something coherent out of them," she said.

The writing process is similar for Tamara Verga Poetry Prize winner Nicole Docimo. "I write everything that comes into my brain and then, after a while, hopefully after I have forgotten where I was trying to go with that particular writing, I go back to it with a bit of distance and try to find what I was actually trying to say," said the junior English major. "I find that often the longer I wait, the better things turn out, because I can't see clearly for revision when I'm still very involved with the mood of a poem."

Docimo is a fan of Anne Sexton's poetry and feels that her own works, such as "Saturday," "Sunday" and "You" - her entries to the competition - share the visceral quality. "My writing style is more on the side of the imagists who use simple words to create a place, an experience that puts the reader there and makes them think about the feeling that it evokes," she said. "Good images give the reader an emotional reaction that causes them to think deeper about their lives."

In spite of winning the Tamara Verga Poetry Prize, Docimo is still shy when it comes to sharing her work with others. She has staunchly refused to let even the people she lives with read her poems.

On the other end of the spectrum, sophomore English major Neil Ferron likes the idea of reading his poetry in front of an audience. Ferron's participation in open mics dates back to high school when he read a poem he had written about his dad at a coffeehouse. "I loved reading my own script basically, my own thing that I had written. It was this totally new type of performance for me because it was so personal," he recalled.

In his poems, Ferron draws influence from a wide variety of sources. He references figures like Jesus and Pee Wee Herman in the series of poems he submitted for the Tamara Verga Poetry Prize, earning an honorable mention. The poems, titled "Pharoah's Dream," "Epitaph" and "Coloring Book," all deal with the common topic of questioning social and spiritual realities.

In addition to having poems published in The Santa Clara Review, Ferron has read at a recent anti-war rally on-campus and was a semi-finalist in a slam poetry competition held by a popular San Jose venue, Waves Smokehouse.Ferron believes that poetry should not-and cannot-be separated from politics. "Part of art is imagination," he said. "Look at the world and see what you can change about it. You get an easel, a pen and a paper or a saxophone, and it's not 'Repeat what's been said already.' It's what do you want to hear, what do you want to see, what do you want to write. There're elements of vision and change that come through art naturally." Senior Holli Ogle, the winner of The Shipsey Poetry Prize. "Senior Night at the Hut," is also familiar with the performance aspect poetry can take. Ogle has participated in a freestyle rap contest and says that her friends were surprised to learn that she, a mechanical engineering major, even wrote poetry.

Although Ogle discovered the on-campus literary opportunities late in her college career, she has been writing since eighth grade. Her grandfather's death prompted her to seek a way to cope emotionally. "I find writing to be a really good way to be expressive, also to help me sort out things that are going on in my life and then later as a reflection point."

Winning a prize for her poem, "Senior Night at the Hut," has reaffirmed Ogle's interest in writing. She hopes to write a collection of funny short stories in the same vein as humorist Patrick McManus.