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 GREENSBORO, NC – Charlotte Observer writer Dannye Romine Powell has won the 2011 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition for her poem “I Am the Girl.”
Poet and editor Dan Albergotti chose Powell’s poem from close to 100 entries.
“I love how this deceptively simple poem navigates what is actually highly complex at the level of syntax, temporality, perspective, and emotion,” Albergotti said. “It's a poem strongly driven by voice and idea, but it doesn't neglect the necessity of image: the high window, the spring breezes, the brown dress and ivory beads, and the wonderfully surprising peach of the final line. There may be only one sentence here, but it magically reveals a lifetime in a way that only poetry can.”
Powell will receive a $200 prize from the North Carolina Writers’ Network, the contest’s sponsor, and her winning poem will be considered for publication in the literary journal The Crucible.
Powell has written for the Charlotte Observer since 1975, in various capacities, including book editor, feature writer, metro columnist, and restaurant reviewer. She has twice won the Brockman-Campbell Award for the best book of poetry by a North Carolinian published in the preceding year. Her poems are forthcoming from Prairie Schooner and the Tampa Review. Her latest collection is A Necklace of Bees (2008, University of Arkansas Press). She is also the author of Parting the Curtains: Interviews with Southern Writers.
Albergotti also named “From Dry Seed Casings” by Mary Jo Amani as runner-up, and poems by Terri Kirby Erickson, Maureen Sherbondy, and Nancy Martin Young as honorable mentions.
A graduate of the MFA program at UNC Greensboro and former poetry editor of The Greensboro Review, Albergotti currently teaches creative writing and literature c ourses and edits the online journal Waccamaw at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. He is the author of The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008), selected by Edward Hirsch as the winner of the 2007 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize.
The preliminary judge for this year’s contest was Amanda Rutstein, a former poetry editor for The Greensboro Review. She is currently a member of the adjunct faculty at UNCG, where she teaches courses in literature and poetry writing.
The Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition honors the work and legacy of the poet and critic Randall Jarrell, who taught at what is now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for nearly eighteen years. The competition is administered by Terry L. Kennedy and the graduate program in creative writing at UNCG, and is open to any writer who is a legal resident of North Carolina or a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. Visit www.ncwriters.org for more information on this and other contests.
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The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.
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