Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Festival Competition Finalists

The Third Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition received submissions from 134 poets. North Carolina poets submitted 53% of the poems. The rest of the poems came from other U.S. states (29%) and other countries (18%) including England, Canada, Greece, India and Turkey.

Poetry selection committee (In alphabetical order) was Greg Dawes, Professor, Foreign Languages an Literatures, NCSU; Joseph Donahue, Poet & Senior Lecturing Fellow, Duke University; Dorianne Laux, Poet & Professor of English, NCSU; Hatice Orun Ozturk, Poet & Teaching Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, NCSU; Jaki Shelton-Green, Poet & 2009 Piedmont Laureate; Jon Thompson, Poet & Editor, FreeVerse Magazine, Professor of English, NCSU.

Winners

The following 14 poets were selected as the winners of this year’s competition (In alphabetical order).

Finalists

Edwina Attlee, London, GB	Michael Beadle Canton, NC	Kevin Boyle Burlington, NC	Alicia Brandewie Atlanta, GA
Aaron Counts Seattle, MA	Ansel Elkins Greensboro, NC	Terri Kirby Erickson Lewisville, NC	Daniel Abdal-HayyMoore, Philadelphia, PA
Adnan Onart Boston, MA	Glenis Redmond Asheville, NC	Maureen Sherbondy Raleigh, NC

 Honorable Mentions

Alisha Gard Carrboro, NC

Maria Rouphail Raleigh, NC

Dianne Timblin Durham, NC

Featured Poets

John Balaban

John Balaban is the author of twelve books of poetry and prose, which have won The Academy of American Poets’ Lamont Prize and a National Poetry Series Selection. His poetry has received two nominations for the National Book Award as well as the 1998 William Carlos Williams Award for his Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New and Selected Poems. He has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow and, in 2008, he was awarded a medal from the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture for his literary translations and for his leadership in digitizing and preserving the ancient text collection at the National Library of Vietnam. Balaban is professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at NC State, where he serves as and Director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. 

www.johnbalaban.com.
 

Dorianne Laux

Dorianne Laux’s most recent collections are The Book of Men and Facts about the Moon. A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and winner of the Oregon Book Award, Laux is also author of Awake, What We Carry, and Smoke from BOA Editions, as well as a fine press edition, Dark Charms, from Red Dragonfly Press.  She teaches poetry in the MFA Program at North Carolina State University and is founding faculty at Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA Program.

www.doriannelaux.com

Guest Speaker

Murat Nemet-Nejat

“Poet, translator and essayist, Murat Nemet-Nejat’s edited and largely translated Eda: An  Anthology of Contemporary Turkish Poetry (2004), translated Orhan Veli, I, Orhan Veli(1989), Ece Ayhan, A Blind Cat Black and Orthodoxies (1997), and Seyhan Erozçelik,Rosestrikes and Coffee Grinds (2010). He is the author of The Peripheral Space of Photography (2004) and, recently, the memoir/essay “Istanbul Noir” (2011), the poems “steps (2008), “Prelude” (2009), “Disappearances” (2010) and “Alphabet Dialogue/Penis Monologues” (2010). His poem The Structure of Escape will be published by Talisman House in 2011. He is presently working on the long poem “The Structure of Escape.”  

Poetry Workshop 

Alice Osborn

A Poetry Workshop will be hosted by Alice Osborn as part of the 2011 festival.  This free poetry workshop will help participants create personal poems in a creative, yet casual atmosphere with published poet, Alice Osborn. The in-class writing exercises and gentle feedback from Alice will help you generate memorable poetry using all of your senses. You’ll also use food, colors, and music to jumpstart your creativity. We welcome all levels and all experience.

www.aliceosborn.com