2024 English Student Poetry Contest Winners

KENNESAW, Ga. (Apr 22, 2024) — In honor of National Poetry Month, we're proud to feature the winners of this year's KSU English Student Poetry Contest! Three poems from current KSU English students were selected by a team of faculty poet reviewers. Many thanks to all who submitted their work for consideration, and a special thanks to our faculty review team: Mack Curry IV, Khalil Elayan, Greg Emilio, Chris Martin, Kristin Rajan, Jenny Sadre-Orafai, Valerie Smith, and Ralph Wilson.

First Place: Hebah Smadi, "Fauna's Undivulged Grief"

Hebah Smadi is an English major in her senior year at KSU, minoring in professional writing and film studies. After graduating, she hopes to work in film or publishing. 

Second Place: Nya Roden, "You should have worn the blue dress to your father's wake"

Born in Rome, Georgia, Nya Roden is a graduate student at KSU. She is an aspiring documentary filmmaker and poet with hopes to work in the burgeoning film industry in Georgia upon receiving her MA in Professional Writing. Her plan b is to be a Humanities Professor. She has a student short film to showcase soon in which she worked alongside talented Kennesaw animators and is currently kickstarting a playwriting club with her favorite professor, Professor William Carter. She loves KSU’s English department and appreciates the opportunities the college has for fellow writers. You can follow her @NyaRoden on Twitter and @nyajroden on Instagram. 

Third Place: Mattie Frascella, "Home"

Mattie Frascella, originally from Los Angeles and now calling Marietta, GA, home, is a testament to resilience, compassion, and the power of lifelong learning. After navigating the multifaceted world of healthcare—from managing medical offices to advocating for patient needs in emergency settings—Mattie's experiences have deeply informed her passion for holistic care. This journey led her to return to school at Kennesaw State University, pursuing dual degrees in Human Services and English, with a minor in Language and Literary Studies. Beyond her professional background, Mattie is a voracious reader and writer, finding solace and joy in writing poetry and essays, which serve as conduits for her reflections on the human condition. Her writing is not just a hobby but a profound part of her advocacy work, particularly in the realm of hospice care, where she aspires to use her skills to support end-of-life journeys with dignity and compassion.

Read their poems:

• Hebah Smadi, "Fauna's Undivulged Grief"

  Something glows a fiery red just down the way.

  A craned neck and shift atop seats of synthetic leather prove unavailing.

  Now I behold hues of brown among the striking red:

  A mesh bag of produce?

  A toy, discarded from feeble hands through the ajar window of a moving car?

  Beams of sunlight filter through the still-transitioning foliage overhead,

  Casting warm, glittering rays upon it—

  Streaked across double yellow lines lay the innocent carnage:

  A fawn, folded upon itself in a shattered heap.

  Thick, reckless rubber has scalped him of his spotted coat,

  Revealing the crimson flesh that appeared as if discarded rubies from afar.

  For how long has he lain here, being dealt succeeding blows and near misses with sharp turns?

  Where is his mama now?

  Wailing among the trees, her call remains eternally unanswered,

  Vanquished by the odious hum of man encroaching upon nature,

  Cutting her home into treacherous sectors with concrete paths.

  Overcome with a grief as discreet as the winds tousling wilting foliage,

  She returns to an ever shrinking and polluted home, stripped of her title as mother,

  Involuntarily relinquished.

• Nya Roden, "You should have worn the blue dress to your father's wake"

  My
  Old school
  Auntie
  Hails
  From
  The
  Beauty
  Through
  Pain
  Generation

  Your
  Eyeliner
  Needs
  To
  Be
  Dark
  Enough
  To
  Match
  Your
  Spirit
  Generation

  The
  Pack
  On
  Some
  Concealer
  On
  Those
  Bags

  So
  Folks
  Will
  Think
  You're
  Handling
  Well
  Generation

  And
  She
  Agrees
  With
  Mom

  They
  Both
  Want
  Me
  To
  Look
  In
  The
  Mirror

  And
  Apply
  Shadows
  To
  The
  Very
  Eyes
  My
  Father
  Left
  Behind
  To
  Me

  Okay!
  Alright!
  Fine!
  And
  After
  That’s
  Done
  I
  Guess
  I’ll
  Turn
  To
  Grief
  And
  Ask
  Any lipstick in my teeth?

• Mattie Frascella, "Home"

  Twenty-five years with the same company doesn’t mean shit.
  One day a man is employed.
  He’s comfortable. He’s respected. He’s got that house up on a hill.
  He’s got a dog and a family. He’s looking forward to retirement in like eight years–
  not the day after tomorrow.

  Covid didn’t give a shit.

  We were going to downsize anyway. Five children grown and gone… Well, sort of.
  One kid was away at college when we sold their bedroom.
  The only room they’d ever known as theirs.

  We’d had other houses,
  but this was Home.

  Oh well. The market was good. We made a killing.
  We sold that house when the market was hellfire hot.
  While all around us
  People were dying of the plague.

  Never once had he been unemployed in all our married life.
  That does something to a man. Strips him bare of outward manifestations of self, like
  Drive and Pride and Purpose.
  A Strong man of Staunch beliefs who never understood the word
  was clinically depressed.

  We sold that place. It was just a place. It was just a house.
  It was our Home.

  We bought another, all in cash. No more debt. No more mortgage.
  Sounds pretty good when you say it like that.
  But money doesn’t buy a Home.
  It doesn’t buy a life.
  It buys shit that we never wanted.

  My Mother lived in that Home. She died there, too.
  You’d think it might be easier then,
  Letting go of the hill house Home,
  Not letting go of Mother.

  Another mother took her place.
  She moved in when she was flooded out.
  Of her place. Her Home.
  She was already traumatized when we received her.
  Then Covid fucked her over good.

  So she arrived
  and made our lives a living hell.
  Everything that was Good and Light and Love,
  embodied in my Mother,
  was null and void in mother two.

  And yet, because we had no choice, I guess?
  We bought a place with the other mother
  cementing the fact that we were now in a house where we didn’t want to be,
  with a woman who sure as hell,
  didn’t want to be with us.
  she Never wanted us.
  Never wanted him.

  When she was pregnant giving birth, mother two hid underneath the bed in the maternity ward.
  she thought that she could hide away
  from having a child
  she never wanted anyway.

  That’s not how it works.
  You do the deed, You pay the price, right?

  Or at least someone does.

  We moved in, and I moved on… Well, sort of.
  mother two forgets things now.
  But not how much she hates this place.
  And sometimes,
  when she can’t hide it any longer
  She reminds us that
  This isn’t Home

  As if we didn’t know.

  Maybe–
  someday
  she’ll forget
  that she’s not happy.

  Maybe–
  someday
  she’ll forget
  that she never wanted a child.

  And She’ll love him too.
  Like my Mother loved me.