The Kathryn Irene Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest is the oldest continuously-running poetry contest for undergraduate students in the United States. Students from invited schools are judged by a panel of three distinguished poets.
Photos from the the 99th Glascock Poetry Contest.
The Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest honors Kathryn Irene Glascock ‘22, a promising young poet who died of pneumonia. Established in 1923 for Mount Holyoke students, the contest was transformed a year later into an intercollegiate event.
Mount Holyoke poet-contestants are chosen by a committee of faculty and students. Poet-contestants from invited institutions are nominated or chosen by their own schools. The poetry contest is judged by a panel of three distinguished poets.
The competition weekend includes a series of public events over the course of a weekend: a Conversation With the Judges, the Student Poetry Competition, and the Judges’ Reading and Announcement of the Contest Winner.
Many Glascock contestants have gone on to literary renown, such as Muriel Rukeyser, James Agee, James Merrill, Kenneth Koch, Diana Chang, Sylvia Plath, Donald Hall, Katha Pollit, and Maggie Nelson.
Since the very first panel of judges, which included Robert Frost, the Glascock has been judged by distinguished poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, W.H. Auden, Seamus Heaney, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Richard Wilbur, William Carlos Williams, Carl Phillips, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Marilyn Chin, Ari Banias, Martín Espada, Dawn Lundy Martin, Kaveh Akbar, Franny Choi, and Fred Moten.
Kathryn Irene Glascock (1901-1923) was the daughter of Hugh Grundy Glascock and Etta (or Ella) Bodine Woods. She pursued a literary career throughout her time at Mount Holyoke, serving editor of the literary section of the Mount Holyoke News and later the Editor-in-Chief. Glascock was awarded the Sigma Theta Chi Prize for poetry and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, among other recognitions. She graduated in 1922, and moved to New York to work in a publishing company. She died of pneumonia thereafter on February 23, 1923.
During her lifetime, Glascock’s poems were published in Vanity Fair and Poetry. A collection of her work, Poems (Garden City, N.Y.: Country Life Press, 1923), was edited by Professor Ada Snell, then chair of the English department, and published posthumously.
Happening at Mount Holyoke
The Kathryn Irene Glascock Poetry Contest at Mount Holyoke College announced two winners for its centennial year: Tom Bosworth ’23 of Dartmouth College and Portlyn Houghton-Harjo ’23 of Pratt Institute.
This year Mount Holyoke College will hold the one hundredth anniversary of the Glascock Poetry Contest. Established in 1923, the annual contest is the oldest continuously running poetry contest for undergraduate students in the United States.
Perez is the first community college winner of Mount Holyoke College’s 97-year-old Glascock Poetry Prize.
Peace was in the falling rain-
The monotony of pain
Had a fit accompaniment.
And the night seemed kindly sent,
With quietude where nothing mars
The comfort of the ancient stars
That see the griefs of all men end.
Rain or night is the best friend
For sorrow--but, waking now,
I seem to have no knowledge how
I can discover me a way
To face the bright intolerable day.
Poetry (May 1923)
