Paula Panzarella told the true tale in free verse of a friend who hid his sexual identity for years, and then emerged shining.
It was all about how he parted his hair.
Her reading won her the “People’s Choice Award” at the fifth annual New Haven Free Public Library Poetry Contest. The event Saturday drew a crowd of 50 word-lovers to the main branch program room.
Click on the play arrow to watch Panzarella recite the tale.
Panzarella’s award was the result of voting by audience members.
Separately, screeners and judges over the past months considered entries and awarded a first in several categories, with the winner taking a $100 prize. Those winners were also announced at Saturday’s proceedings.
Panzarella was a finalist in the adult category, along with Joanne Paone-Gill and Meri Harari. Paone Gill won.
The finalists in the teen category were Zulahat Hussein, Henry Jacob, and Rosabella Ziou; Henry Jacob won.
St. Aedan-St. Brendan 7th grader Kiarra Lavache (with her English teacher Linda Couden) was a finalist for her poem “My Place of Light.”
The youngest poet finalists were Kiarra Lavache, Maggie Guarino-Trier, and Jacob Spell, with Guarino-Trier taking first.
A record number — more than 80 people — entered the contest. They wrote no more than 25 lines on the theme of “a place of light,” said librarian Dee Dee Rogers, one of the coordinators.
“Happy Poetry Month to all of us,” she said as she invited the first of the nine readers up to recite.
The winning poems will be published in an upcoming issue of The New Haven Review.