The winners (from left): Alison Clarke, Gabriel Arntt and Susan Martin

By The Chapter & Verse Team » Alison Clarke, a grad student at Hollins University, Virginia, US, has won the Women in 2009 Poetry Contest, organized by poet Oneal Walters in celebration of inspirational women.

Gabriel Arntt and Susan Martin won second and third place respectively.

"This contest," said Walters, "was dedicated to those women who have added to our lives and made it easier for us to have hope.

"It was also organized to discover, promote and reward talented writers for their patience and dedication in writing poems that are interesting, passionate and inspirational," he added.

In her winning poem, One of Us, Clarke describes and integrates a time of blunt injustice with the importance of equality that was shown through the memory of Rosa Parks.  Clarke has been writing since grade six, and has also published a children's story titled The Adventure of Eli.

Clarke's contest-winning entry earned her a prize of U$110.

Gabriel Arntt's second-prize winning poem, The Big Bad Woolf, shows genius, ambition and inspiration in depicting the life and death of an incredible writer, Virginia Woolf.

Arntt, who has been writing since high school and later obtained his BA in Liberal Arts, has also been acting for 12 years and played the piano for 14 years. At 25, Arntt admits, “writing will always be my most personal form of expression.”  His contest effort earned him a prize of US$60.

In third place, Susan Martin's poem, First Lady, masters the art of threading precise details into a story in order to highlight her role models, Jackie Kennedy and Michelle Obama.

Martin was an English teacher, and started a pro-active creative writing program in her school.  Her students  have competed in national, state and local contests. She is an avid reader. Her contest entry earned her a prize of US$30.

Please click on the links below to read the prize-winning poems:

One of Us - Alison Clarke | The Big Bad Woolf - Garbriel Arntt | First Lady - Susan Martin