It was a night of anything but iambic pentameter as students flocked the NYU Shanghai gallery space for pizza and poetry at the Second Annual NYU Shanghai Poetry Competition. Hosted by The Writing Program and Feast--a newly launched student-run arts publication--the competition encouraged students to read original works or poems authored by others.
One by one, students braved the crowd and headed to the front with their poems. The performers were showered with applause from their peers as they at random called on the next reader. Voted “Best Original” was April Sun, whose prose poem left the audience resonating in the melody of her voice. John Rhodes was voted for “People’s Choice”, impressing the crowd with an energetic original, memorized and performed at length. The night’s “Best Performance” went to Kadallah Burrowes, whose poem eloquently addressed the intricacies of human identity.
“With Feast, I'm really just trying to create a platform...where artists can get inspiration from each other, and not just within their own disciplines, because I know that I'm sometimes inspired the most by artists who are dancing or creating music or designing structures--all things I've never managed to be all that skilled at,” said Burrowes, one of the magazine’s chief editors.
Judging the competition was Associate Professor of Anthropology Todd Meyers, Writing Lecturer David Perry, Global Academic Fellow Joshua Dy Borja, as well as student judges Tristan Armitage, Nofar Hamrany, and Angelica Castro-Mendoza.
“I was impressed by the quality of the student work and the energy of the crowd. It's has been a real joy to watch the development of a burgeoning literary community here at NYU-Shanghai,” said Associate Director of the Writing Program and Lecturer Jennifer Tomscha.
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