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Caitlin Ritchie: Class of 2014 Creative Writing Awards contestant

Caitlin Ritchie poem photoTo honor the University’s Class of 2014 Creative Writing Awards, the Library is publishing contestants’ poems or prose excerpts on Falvey’s blog. The Library also has created posters for the contestants’ poems or prose excerpts, which will be displayed throughout the library’s first floor.

This year the contest includes both poetry and prose (in previous years it was “the Senior-Class-Poet Contest”). The Department of English will announce the Class of 2014 Creative Writing Awards winners later this month.

“The Third Floor Water Fountain”
by
Caitlin Ritchie

I approach you
Place my hand on yours
Lean in hoping for the refreshment I’ve been waiting so long for

You give me water, but not without pressure
And even then you deprive me
Giving me just a taste of what I need for survival

You barely quench my thirst
And the hunger, like my assignments, persists
I hope with each new meeting that you will have changed

You cannot see the effect you have on me
Your water dribbles out like empty and unfulfilling words
But still I overdose on eager dreams of your sustenance

I pretend not to forgive your uncertainty as I hide in the stacks
But nothing, no advice, can stop me from returning to your iron lips
I have to come to terms with my insatiable thirst for you,
You and the third floor water fountain

Caitlin Ritchie, a Class of 2014 Creative Writing Awards contestant, says “This poem was actually partially inspired by Falvey’s third floor water fountain that has never worked quite right. I loved playing around with the imagery in the poem and had the opportunity to share and edit the poem with my poetry workshop class, taught by visiting Irish professor Eamonn Wall.”

Caitlin is a senior marketing major and international business minor from Plymouth, Minnesota. Her poetry has also been published in multiple editions of Villanova’s literary arts magazines, POLIS and Arthology.


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Last Modified: April 29, 2014

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