For 25 years, the annual Poet’s Seat Poetry Contest has uncovered hidden talent within the community.
What’s remarkable about submissions to the contest, according to its co-coordinator, is that the poems not only look out at the broader world, but also offer an introspective look into the writers’ own worlds.
Dennis Finnell said he has served as a judge and now coordinates the contest with Greenfield Community College Librarian Hope Schneider.
This year’s awards ceremony will be held April 28 at 7 p.m. in the Capen room at Stoneleigh-Burnham School.
The contest, held in honor of poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, who resided in Greenfield from 1847 until his death in 1873, is sponsored by the Friends of the Greenfield Public Library.
Though he never achieved wide public acclaim, Tuckerman was considered to be a gifted poet by his contemporaries, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Tuckerman eschewed law in favor of botany and writing poetry, and his poems are often included in anthologies of noted American poets.
Hope Schneider, who took over as co-coordinator of the contest seven years ago, said its origins have become a little murky over time, but believes the contest was created by Arthur Stein and Genie Zeiger, both of whom are now deceased.
“I think they were the masterminds and the driving force behind it, seeing the connection between the Poet’s Seat, Frederick Tuckerman, Greenfield and the library,” Schneider said.
The contest opened in January and poets were asked to submit up to three poems each.
This year, Schneider said there were about 200 entries, which she said is a typical number.
Ten finalists were selected in both adult and youth categories. All of the finalists will read their poems at the ceremony, which is scheduled to coincide with National Poetry Month.
In the adult division, awards are given for first, second and third place, and the two top poems are chosen from the two youth divisions — ages 12 to 14 and 15 to 18.
Many of the judges, Finnell said, have been involved in writing in some way for most of their adult lives. He said they look for originality, content that speaks to them and a little bit of surprise when choosing the winners.
“There’s a variety of people, but one thing that unites them is their love of language and poetry specifically, and their connection with the community,” he said of the judges.
What amazes him about the poets, he said, is the breadth of what they write about, and the way in which they do it.
“One thing I noticed with poems in the youth category was how the poems reflect what you would think of as newsworthy — in other words, if there are problems in the community, drugs, for example, if there are problems in the world with bombings, terror attacks — those things get into poems,” Finnell said, adding many of the adult poems seem to be focused locally on the agricultural heritage of the community, and how that has changed over time.
“What’s remarkable is that poems look out to the world, but also look into our own world around here and the kind of difficulties or joys that people have,” he said.
Over the contest’s 25 years, Schneider said, it has grown and evolved to where it is today, graduating from the basement of the library to the Stoneleigh-Burnham School.
The organizers have also begun putting together a chapbook of the poems each year, which is available to all who attend the ceremony.
This year, Finnell said the contest received submissions from several people who said they had the works sitting around for 20 or 30 years and decided to type them up and send them in.
“I think that’s what I really like, is feeling that there are a lot of people who are invisible out there who write these things from their hearts and want to share them, and I think that’s a great thing,” said Finnell. “I’ll be reading 200 poems and then I’ll just come across a poem that makes me feel connected with that person, and that’s what you’re looking for.”
The event is free and open to the public.