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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 3:41 p.m., Friday, January 11, 2008

Honolulu poet wins HPU's James M. Vaughan Award

Advertiser Staff

Susan Soong of Honolulu has been named the recipient of the James M. Vaughan Award for Poetry at Hawai'i Pacific University.

She will receive $500 and be recognized at HPU's 11th annual Ko'olau Writing Workshops on March 8, at HPU's Windward Hawai'i Loa Campus in Kane'ohe.

Soong's winning poem, titled "Andante," which was selected from about 70 entries of three poems each, will be published in volume 22 of HPU's literary magazine, Hawai'i Pacific Review, scheduled for release this summer.

The James M. Vaughan Award for Poetry is named after Hawai'i Pacific University alumnus James M. Vaughan, who established a fund to enhance the literature and poetry programs at HPU. Each year HPU recognizes a Hawai'i writer for an outstanding poem or group of poems.

Soong has written a souvenir book of poems that has been available at various O'ahu museums including Honolulu Academy of Arts, The Contemporary Museum, Queen Emma Summer Palace, and Hulihe'e Palace. She holds a bachelor's degree from Finch College and a master's degree from California State College and has studied at Na'au, a writing center established by prominent Hawai'i writer Lois-Ann Yamanaka.

HPU Assistant English Professor Patrice M. Wilson said in a news release:

"As the judge this year, I was struck by the calm, quiet power of the poem as a eulogy for the mother, the imagery of the pearls and the telephone cord in juxtaposition with the memory of the mother's 'disjointed fingers gripping a violin bow.'"

Wilson added, "I love the allusion to music, and how her poem fits its title. The ending is so suggestive of the sorrow of the heart at the mother's death, with its reference to the memory of 'splayed hearts of abalone' being detached by the mother's old fingers. The poem is a beautifully wrought six stanza tribute to the speaker's mother."

Jesse M. Fourmy of Hilo, received honorable mention in this year's contest for his poem titled "Ode to a Hermit Crab," which will also be published in HPR, Vol. 22.

"I was impressed by the way the poet manipulates images and stories about a certain hermit crab, giving it an interesting history and making it come alive for the reader as if it were a person," Wilson said. "The ending links the crab's hardness to 'the hardest parts of us' very effectively."