Advancing And Celebrating Poetry From Students
The Sallie Wright Harrison Poetry Award was established in 1998 by a class of 1972 alumnus, in memory of Mrs. Harrison, and as a testimony to her love of poetry and teaching. This fund has been endowed in order to further promote the creation of poetic writings by students at the College. All students are strongly encouraged to try their hand at this form of expression, which may be different from what they have previously attempted, and which they may well find enjoyable as well as enriching. To this end, the poetry fund generates an annual cash award (most recently in the amount of $500) for a Hampden-Sydney College student who has proven by his authorship to possess a genuine interest and creativity in verse.
"The poet’s language is a faithful echo of his feelings. It is emotion – warm, generous, lofty emotion, inspired by a perception of the beautiful and the grand, such as seems to raise him who feels it above the sordidness and petty concerns of ordinary life – which seems to be the essence of poetry…"
Professor George Tucker, 1830