"There were things I did at Kent that I never thought I would-drama, for example..."Read More
Matthew Madrazo ’10 is the winner of the January poetry contest. Poetry contests are held throughout the year and open to all students. For this particular contest, students were to write a poem using an “extended simile to compare your mind to something rather unexpected, surprising, even shocking, but nevertheless appropriate as Richard Wilbur does throughout his poem ‘Mind.’” An extended simile is figurative comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as” that continues throughout a single poem.
David Yezzi, a noted poet and literary editor, was a recent visiting lecturer at Kent and special guest on the judging panel for the contest. Out of six finalist poems selected by Kent faculty judges, Mr. Yezzi chose Madrazo’s poem “The Airport” as the winner. Mr. Yezzi noted, “Madrazo’s inventive and continually unfolding comparison interweaves wry humor and wit with a teeming sense of the mind at play.”
The Airport
My mind is like an airport.
Thoughts are people from all walks of life
in one big commotion of organized chaos,
coming in and going out
faster than the blink of one’s eye
but always filtered through TSA.
Unwanted banter is on the no fly list
with optimism and intuition as frequent flyers.
A diverse community where
everyone’s differences are what center it all
and create my perfect mind.
- Matthew Madrazo '10