I was recently
asked to be a judge for a poetry contest held by the student editors
of Taft College's literary magazine, A Sharp Piece of Awesome.
This magazine has been put out by the students for the past five
years, with their next issue due out next May. However, this was the
first year I learned of their poetry reading event.
The event, like
many of their book launch events, was held at the Black Gold Cafe in
downtown Taft. The owner is a strong supporter of the schools in
Taft.
There were probably
twenty people there, mostly Taft College students, but a few other
people came out to hear and read their poetry. There were three
judges. Bill Devine is a professor at Taft College, teaching English
classes. Then Clarissa Alderete, who is a student at Taft College and
one of the Sharp Piece of Awesome editors.
Then there was me. I had been invited since I'm a Kern County
published poet.
We
(the judges) took a few minutes before the reading started to go over
the criteria we wanted to us. Since it was a contest of reading,
some of the criteria were performance based (like articulation), and
since it was a poetry contest, some of the criteria were literary
(like clarity and imagery). Then we scattered to different parts of
the room to listen. Then afterwards we got back together and
discovered we'd all agreed on the top three. Oh, we did have them in
slightly different order, but we all had the same top three. So after
a little discussion we decided on a consensus order.
Given
that most of the people there were Taft College students, it's not
too surprising that two of the prizes went to some of them (first and
third prizes). But second went to an older man (probably in his
seventies, maybe eighties). His poems, while not in a modern style,
were very good, and he was a very good reader. Well, actually he had
his mostly memorized. The
audience as a whole also got to vote their favorite, and again the
majority went for him.
So
all in all this was a fun event. I had a chance to meet some new
people, talk poetry and have a good time. It was quite an honor for
Geoffrey Dyer, the Sharp Piece of Awesome
faculty advisor, to think of me as a possible judge for their event.
Hopefully I'll have a chance to do something similar again.
