Congratulations to Ian Burnette and Elena Saavedra Buckley, the first and second place winners of the Wick Poetry Center's National Teen Poetry Contest.
Ian Burnette Ian attends the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities and is the winner of the Kenyon Review's Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, the Blue Pencil's Elizabeth Bishop Prize in Verse, and the third place winner of Princeton University's Leonard L. Milberg '53 Secondary School Poetry Prize. His favorite poets are Michael Dickman and Matthew Dickman. His work is forthcoming in the Fall 2013 issue of The Kenyon Review.
As the first place winner, Ian and his school with both receive a $500 award. Ian will also be a guest reader at the 2013 Celebrating Our Own event on October 1, 2013, at 7 p.m. in the Kiva Auditorium.
Elena Saavedra BuckleyElena Saavedra Buckley is a redheaded seventeen-year-old from Albuquerque, New Mexico and a rising senior at Sandia Preparatory School. She is an editor for the national student literary magazine Polyphony H.S., has attended the Kenyon Review Young Writers' Workshop, and will be attending the Iowa Young Writers Studio this summer. Her work is forthcoming in the journal scissors and spackle. Other than creative writing, Elena writes about classical music at her blog Neo Antennae, hikes on nearby volcanoes, and treasures the hazy outline of Saturn's rings through her telescope.
Elena and her school will each receive at $250 prize.