Ramsey Wins Hallberg Creative Writing Prize

Hannah Ramsey, a Creative Writing Minor and student in John Hoppenthaler’s Introduction to Creative Writing class, won the 7th Annual Bill Hallberg Award in Creative Writing for her poem “Say Grace.” Mihaela Moscaliuc was the final judge, and Ramsey read her poem at last night’s reading by Moscaliuc and Michael Waters for the Contemporary Writers Series.

Of the poem, Moscaliuc writes, “I admire the poem for how it handles, in both content and form, what remains unspoken. Below the surface of this ordinary Norman Rockwell family portrait lies a sense of dread, a dark secret—maybe familial, or of a religious nature– that haunts the speaker and perhaps the new residents as well. The stanzaic architecture, plain diction and subtle yet unmistakable musicality—derived primarily from internal rhyming (meal-feel; roll-walls; prayer-air)—intensify the tension at the heart of the poem. Amen, indeed.”