Centennial Anthology seeks poetry from Upper Schoolers

Inanimate objects don’t keep journals. But if Hockaday, as a school, as an institution was to put pen to paper and record its nearly 100 year journey to the present, it would be quite similar to the “Centennial Anthology” which the Centennial editorial board is currently piecing together.

“Our anthology will not be a strict history, nor will it be a literary anthology, nor a marketing device, but it will have aspects of all of these things,” said Editorial Board Co-Chair Natalie “Schatzie” Lee ’55.

Following a 1938 book commemorating the school’s 25th anniversary and “Of Hearts and Minds,” published in 1988 in honor of Hockaday’s 75th anniversary, this compilation will be Hockaday’s third major historical publication.

The book will, of course, feature the writings of our founder Ela Hockaday and numerous alums interspersed with images from Hockaday’s archives. But these pieces will be published alongside the writing of Ms. Hockaday’s contemporaries, including Gertrude Stein and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Upper School students have the opportunity to join the ranks of these writers through a poetry contest. English Department Chair Dr. Deborah Moreland is collecting submissions through March 23.

Lee suggests that the poem “should reflect the Hockaday experience of the writer. It could speak somehow to Hockaday’s history, to its purpose, to its spirit, to its diversity, to the abundance of academic and artistic opportunities offered its students.”

Though the committee has for now allotted only one spot for a poem by an Upper School student, girls can get involved with the project by participating on the selection committee, a combined group of teachers and peer readers.

Sophie finds it fitting that we honor Ms. Ela’s legacy through good writing and hopes the selected poem features elements of the unexpected.

“The only poems or writing I’ve read about Hockaday is little Lower Schoolers ‘this is so happy, golden flower butterfly place.’” She would like to see a poem selected that illustrates “a different edge about Hockaday, maybe not so obvious.”

Moreland is simply pleased to have the opportunity to participate and looks forward to sharing the work of Upper School students with the readers of the anthology.

“It’s going to be an interesting anthology, I’m sure it’s going to be beautifully published as well and so it will be exciting to have at least one poem from our Upper School students included,” she said.

– Caroline