To honor the University’s Senior-Class-Poet contestants and to commemorate National Poetry Month, the Library is publishing contestants’ poems on Falvey’s blog. The Library also has created posters for the contestants’ poems, which are displayed throughout the first floor.

Each spring semester, all seniors are encouraged to enter the Senior-Class-Poet Contest. The Department of English will announce the 2013 Senior-Class Poet later this semester.

……….Love on the Spanish Steps

…………..by Gregory Watry

Picture perfect:

she in a white dress

and he in a black suit.

Fingers laced,

looking at each other

they are poised;

positioned by the photographer.

Fanny pack tourists

with their cameras and maps

look on.

…………Haven’t they ever seen staged love?

The bulbs flash;

fingers unlace.

…………Give ‘em a peck for the show

…………they deserve it.

The crowd golf-claps;

she traces the fountain’s water

with a fingertip.

And there I sit,

…………watching from the steps

……………………sick to the stomach

………………………………thinking I am somehow above love.

A Senior-Class-Poet Contestant, Gregory says “Poetry writing, for me, grows out of observation. The daily images that pass before my eyes hold more than I can ever imagine. It’s a bottomless well.”

Gregory Watry is an English and communication double major from Sparta, NJ.