Lamont Younger Poets Prize Awarded to Four Students

Preps Mai Hoang and Ayush Noori and lowers Bella Alvarez and Miles Mikofsky, this year’s winners of the Lamont Younger Poets Prize, shared their work with the Exeter community along with visiting poet Meg Day. The students read their poems to the Exeter community in the Rockefeller Hall of the Class of 1945 Library on Tuesday, May 9.

Each spring, the Lamont Younger Poets Prize honors poems written by underclassmen and encourages budding poets to continue developing their craft. Prize winners share their work at an annual reading, and their poems are printed in chapbooks to remain in the library archives.

English Instructor Todd Hearon, who serves as one of the judges on the Lamont Poetry Committee, said that the prize goes to preps and lowers who have “demonstrated considerable skill in the development of their craft.” The committee, he explained, is “looking for students who are laying the groundwork formally in ways that demonstrate a serious and potentially longstanding devotion to the art of poetry.”

Referencing Southeastern Asian symbols such as the Irrawaddy river, lotus flowers and pipal trees in her piece, “The Lesson,” Hoang touched on her experience growing up in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam and the Rohingya refugee crisis, which she had previously researched for an Amnesty International project.

“I wanted to examine the justifications that people use to isolate and victimize other groups and how they are transmitted from generation to generation,” Hoang said. “I think the topic of this poem is also the most challenging one I've tried to tackle so far, and it means a lot to me that the judges thought I did it justice.”

Hoang had written poetry in both English and her native language, Vietnamese, before she came to Exeter. However, she credited her improvement in writing to her Exeter English instructors, who have given her constructive and personalized feedback throughout the year. “Before Exeter, my English classes at school constituted of boring grammar because I studied English as a second language,” she said. “I think my writing has improved so much since then; a big advantage to having one teacher for every twelve kids is that you can conference with your teacher more often and ask them about the specific things you need to work on.”

Outside of class, Hoang engages in conversation with other passionate writers and poets, and seeks opportunities beyond campus to publish her work—she submits her writing to various online publications every couple of weeks. “I love writing poetry; it is a kind of emotional catharsis that I resort to when too much is happening in my life. At Exeter, I’ve tried to find fellow poets, English teachers and other adults who are interested in poetry,” she said. “I look for opportunities online. I would say there have been more misses than hits, but you always learn something from a failure.”

Noori’s poem “The Prime of Life” explored declining neurological and bodily function and was inspired by his grandmother’s diagnosis of the rare neurodegenerative disorder progressive supranuclear palsy. “Progressive supranuclear palsy gradually robbed her of her ability to move, communicate, eat and see, all while her mind remained fully sharp and conscious,” he said. “I wrote my poem to honor her life and fight [and] to relate the grisly truth of the experience of watching someone you love be trapped in their own skin.”

Noori hopes that in his poetry, he will breach stylistic norms and cultivate a compelling voice of his own. “I would like to hope that I have broken through some stereotypes I had about what proper writing should look like and have moved away from using platitudes in my pieces to more meaningful expression of my ideas,” he said. “I felt honored to learn I had won the prize and was really glad to have the opportunity to share my work with the community alongside fellow Exonians.”

Alvarez agreed with Noori that winning the prize was especially memorable because she got to share her work with the community and the visiting poet Meg Day alongside the other prize winners. “It was great to see my mom, my friends and my peers in the audience supporting me,” Alvarez said. “Meg was also incredibly encouraging and friendly, and she was very helpful beforehand. She encouraged me not to have any nerves.”

Alvarez’s poem “Childhood” recalled some of her early memories. “I was inspired to write a sort of eulogy to those childhood memories that always seem to escape my grasp,” she said. “I collected these fragments of memories I had and compiled them into two categories: ones that I felt had stayed with me and those that seem to ebb and flow from my memory.”

She felt honored to have her work preserved in the library. “I really loved getting to have my work published in an archive that includes other notable Lamont poets,” she said.

Like Alvarez’s piece, Mikofsky’s poem “Home” evoked his early memories. Mikofsky said that writing about his childhood “came most naturally and easily” to him. He urged new writers to follow this example and reflect on subjects important to them. “Write what you feel strongly about, or it won’t be good,” he said.

Following the students’ readings, Day read excerpts from her collection of poetry “Last Psalm at Sea Level” along with some of her unpublished poems. English Instructor Mercy Carbonell, who has arranged for Day to return to campus to speak at next year’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, felt that Day was a strong asset to the poetry reading because of her fresh and relevant voice for Exeter’s queer community.

“For the queer students and faculty on campus, having her here and listening to her speak of her art, her life, her poetry was like waiting for a long time for water,” she said. “That is healing and activism and the spirit of a ‘queer divinity’ in motion.”

Carbonell also appreciated Day’s potent poetic exploration of disability and disidentification, issues rarely discussed on Exeter’s campus. “In a culture in which we consider success the act of gaining, of acquiring, of accumulating, Day asked us to consider the nature of the body in pain,” Carbonell said. “Day modeled the ways in which kindness is not simply about being nice; kindness is about feeling honored to tell someone a hard truth. She is radical joy and hope and healing.”

Many expressed gratitude for the annual Lamont Committee and what it says about the Exeter community. “Each year, by the number and quality of submissions, the contest demonstrates richly that poetry plays a vital role in the cultural life of the academy community,” Hearon said.

English Instructor Courtney Marshall added that the competition captures poetry’s relevance in everyday life and hopes that the it will inspire burgeoning poets to immerse themselves in writing. “Poetry is all around us every day, not just in the books in our libraries, but in the voices of our friends.” she said. “I hope the prize encourages those of us who don’t identify as poets to read a poem and maybe try writing one ourselves.”