Kids & Family

Campbell Resident one of Five Poetry Winners

The VTA will display five poetry contest winners on VTA buses and light rail trains.

Santa Clara County will celebrate National Poetry Month by featuring five resident's contest-winning poems on Valley Transportation Authority buses and trains.

The five winning poems of the "Poetry on the Move" contest were chosen from more than 100 submissions by readers and final judge Jennifer Sweeney, said the Santa Clara County Office of Public Affairs. Campbell resident Dennis Noren was one of the five winners for his piece, "Accelerate."

The poems, which have been printed with a visual design meant to convey a sense of movement, come from residents of Campbell, San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, according to the office of public affairs.

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The poems will be featured on VTA surfaces that usually contain advertisements as well as in public libraries, said Gwendolyn Mitchell at the Santa Clara County Office of Public Affairs.

Each poem is comprised of 50 words or less and was chosen based on its ability to convey something about the identity of Silicon Valley, said the public affairs office.

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"I believed these five poems best captured the daily human experience... while celebrating the locale in a striking way," Sweeny said.

The contest ran from mid-December through Jan. 31.

Winners of the contest were:

  • Dennis Noren, Campbell: “Accelerate”
  • Diana Clarke, Sunnyvale: “Tangents of Invention Early On”
  • Mark Heinlein, San Jose: “Gravity”
  • Samantha Lê, San Jose: “From the Platform on First Street”
  • Danielle Roberts, Santa Clara: “The Inventor”

The contest was funded by City of San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs and space for the poems was donated by the VTA, Mitchell said.

--Bay City News Service

Sheila Sanchez contributed to this article.


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