Student Wins Second Place in State Poetry Competition

April 20, 2020

Fiona Mucaj ’21 has just won second place in the Connecticut Poetry Society annual LynnDeCaro High School poetry competition, this year judged by Julie Choffel.

Fiona’s poem, “Dream Fetish,” inspired the judge to say this about it: “This poem surprises at every turn. Like a dream, it feels both authentic and strange, a paradox of meaning. It calls out our world, as ‘some man plays God,’ and throws wild shade to that world’s tyrannical gestures, ‘like a dart through the heart of a hummingbird.’ But in the poem the waking world is also undermined by the more powerful logic of the dream, which is always more inventive. One thing conjures another, like the images of blood and peaches, shape-shifting and evasive. We are left with more questions than answers, perhaps, and the questions beg us to open our eyes. ‘Do you know how lucky you are?’ the poem’s ‘specialist’ asks in the midst of a veritable nightmare, reminding us to be wary of the world we have been handed.”

“Dream Fetish” will be published in this year’s Daemon as well as on the Connecticut Poetry Society website. Fiona will receive a check for fifty dollars as a prize, in addition to the honor of winning.

Congratulations, Fiona!