2024 Annual Brooks Poetry Prize Competition

May 9, 2024—Nine students stepped on stage in the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Theater as the final round of the Brooks Poetry Prize Competition got underway. “The Brooks Poetry Prize competition encourages students to read poetry and to practice public speaking,” said English Department Head Courtney Jackson, “and it gives us all a chance to listen to some poetry together as a community.” 

The preliminary rounds are held during English classes, where every Class IV and Class V student chooses a poem to recite. The guidelines encourage students to “look for a poem to which you genuinely respond.” One student from each class section is chosen to compete in the final round and present their poem in front of the school at assembly. Readers are judged on their degree of thorough understanding, clear articulation, and expression.  The 2024 judges of the Brooks Poetry Prize competition include Associate Head of School Kate Caspar, Class of 2026 Dean and English Faculty David Griffin, and Director of the Virginia Wing Library Laura Duncan. 

While Class IV and Class V students recite a verse of their choosing, Class V students additionally offer a reflection elaborating on why they selected a particular poem. This year’s poems were an eclectic mix—spanning topics from mortality, fear, and loss, to hope, memory, and seasonal pleasures—and both the poems and their accompanying commentary held the audience’s rapt attention.

The Class IV and Class V winners will be announced during the annual Awards Celebration in June.
The 2024 finalists included:

Class IV

Sisi Ansari reading Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Kindness”
Talia Bitton reading Marge Piercy’s “Shabbat Moment” 
Isabella Nguyen reading Clint Smith’s “Pangaea”
Sophia Selassie reading Nikki Giovanni’s “Allowables”

Class V

Elena Bird reading Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Every day as a wide field, every page”
Ginny Choe reading Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias”
Orli Goldwasser reading e.e. cummings’s ‘[in Just-]’
Bella Holt reading Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”
Sienna McCabe reading Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror”

The Brooks Poetry Prize competition was established by Clara G. Brooks—a “great friend” of Miss Winsor’s. Brooks funded the reading and writing prizes in 1913. Additionally, her daughter and granddaughters later attended Winsor including Rachel Brooks Jackson ’02, Madeline Jackson Emery ’35, and Clara Jackson Murfey ’39.