Never Retallack |  Entertainment Editor

While school life has shifted to remote learning and creating, the university is still allowing opportunities for students to showcase their work. As such, the Department of English Studies has announced the winners of the 2020 Peter Sears Poetry Prize. 

Peter Sears is an esteemed poet in Portland and has obtained degrees from Yale and the University of Iowa. He was named the Oregon Poet Laureate from 2014 to 2016 and remains an important and influential writer in the state.

Sears also worked as a community services coordinator for the Oregon Arts Commission where he aided writers in their work with the National Endowment for the Arts. All of his hard work has earned him awards from the Oregon State Library, Willamette Writers and Literary Arts. Along with the Poetry Prize he has also founded the Oregon Literary Coalition and the publishing press Cloudbanks Books, along with their poetry journal, Cloudbank.

For the Peter Sears Poetry Prize, the first prize for the contest was $200, second prize was $75 and the third was $25.

The first prize winner went to Cylinda Neidenbach for her piece “To Bear Arms.” This piece was short and takes one’s breath away, seemingly a love ode to someone who has been through violence and hard work.

Cheyan Swan took the second prize with their powerful poem “a spell for revenge.” Between lines of strikingly intense spell weaving and casting, Swan intertwined who the spell was for — revealing hardships they have been through.

Third prize went to Katherine Sutton for their piece “Flower Crowns.” This poem compares the different experiences between that of a child and those who are older, all through creative metaphors using a flower.

Those who are interested in reading the full poems can find them here. https://wou.edu/wouportal/email_attachments/allstudents/msg-1588262462-25662-0/PeterSearsWinners2020.pdf

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu