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Every semester the Howe Writing Center holds a creative writing contest, with the mission to cultivate a culture of writing that honors a range of voices and perspectives at Miami. The contest is open to submissions from any Miami undergraduate or graduate ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵ writer.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, this semester’s contest invited Miami writers to produce a poem This semester’s contest invited Miami writers to produce a poem that explores both the exterior and interior of a specific Miami campus building. The prompt asked that the powms be written in the duplex poetry form (a poem patterned with repeating images and phrases). Writers considered how the exterior of a building contradicts its interior, what hidden spaces within buildings speak to their personal experiences, or whether certain architectural elements align with the community's use of the building.

Congratulations to our winners and thank you to everyone who submitted work for the contest!

Here are this year’s winners:

• 1st Place: An Engineer's Interlude by Eva Goorskey
• 2nd Place: Duplex by Gavin Sale
• 3rd Place: For CPA By Anna Blasinski
• Staff Pick: The glass hums. . . by Gracelyn Spires
• Honorable Mention: Shiny Rust by Brian Mackintosh

Eva Goorskey

The engineering building never sleeps, but wears a humble disposition. This poem is simply an ode to the recycling of ideas by ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵs, mirrored in the building itself. The expanse of whiteboards in every classroom, where thoughts are expelled and erased. The windowed labs that allow a candid snapshot of work not quite complete. And, an interlude in the form of an empty patio.

Even before crafting this poem, I doubted if I could write about this building. It’s no Farmer or Mcvey. But as an engineering major, I found an opportunity to demystify the space, where “cutting edge” is not always reality. Whatever impression you have of engineering, it's a humbling pursuit. But when you’re in a lab, troubleshooting the mechanical testing on polymer samples, or watching the pilot paper machine operate like clockwork, you can’t help but feel like some mad scientist. In this building I’ve become a wizard, an over-caffeinated college ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵ, a child at play. There’s respite in that mess of prototyping, a fondness in that ordinary practice of trying.

Unsurprisingly, I love poetry. But I’ve never followed a structure, adopting a laissez-faire philosophy to my work. This contest challenged me to take a more systematic approach to achieve the duplex form. I filled pages with word association, looking for those double meanings. Fittingly, the experience reminded me of science - approaching problems from different angles, with each chaotic attempt getting closer to a polished result. My greatest takeaway is not the poem itself. Rather, the joy of actually noticing where my feet were. University is fast-paced and frustrating. But work trudges on, somehow, weaving amongst the unexpected. A room holds us all the same. Spend enough time in a space, and you might find a quiet charm - hidden right in the plain and ordinary.

The engineering building recycles an interlude - steady pulse. Before the bridge, Pillars pulse-steady as bridges. Engineering: ordinary practice of building. Ordinary building, engineers practice something simple, staining whiteboards. Something special? Mistake-stained white. Labs wear glass, look at a prototype. Prototypes could be failure's looking glass. Yet sometimes, a pilot paper machine takes flight. Any pilot idea takes time to land. Still why not scrap that empty patio? Why, empty patios are that useful scrap the engineering building recycles!

An Engineer's Interlude

The engineering building recycles
an interlude - steady pulse. Before the bridge,

       Pillars pulse-steady as bridges.
       Engineering: ordinary practice of building.

Ordinary building, engineers practice
something simple, staining whiteboards.

       Something special? Mistake-stained white.
       Labs wear glass, look at a prototype –

Prototypes could be failure’s looking glass. Yet
sometimes, a pilot paper machine takes flight.

       Any pilot idea takes time to land. Still –
       why not scrap that empty patio?

Why, empty patios are that useful scrap
the engineering building recycles!

Eva is a sophomore chemical engineering major with a bioinformatics minor. On campus, she is part of the Scholar Leaders program and serves as the vice president of Engineers Without Borders. She enjoys poetry, playing violin, and science.

Gavin Sale

I chose to take pictures and write a poem about Armstrong for its long and complex history. My poem regards events dating far back to before the building was even named Armstrong Student Center and the pictures serve to highlight the military past of the building. My Duplex focuses largely on the building's roots of Rowan Hall, the old ROTC building, and the protests that the building withstood. Specifically, the violent protest in the 60’s regarding the vietnam war which resulted in a campus wide tear gassing as well as police dogs being unleashed on protesting ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵs and faculty.

The most difficult part about writing this poem was how to tie all of my feelings and the events together into a coherent story. This was so that my poem could both serve as an educator and a reminder of the events that occurred on campus not too long ago. I remember hearing about this story for the first time from a retired alumni and I believe many people, both ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵs and faculty, have forgotten these important events from Miami's history. While the past is important, I believe Armstrong now also serves as a message to work towards rebuilding trust and so I both want to honor the new message and shed light on the old movements of this historic building. 

Duplex

Gavin Sale, a sophomore Nursing ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵ with no prior publications or formal experience, was inspired to submit to this contest by the powerful history behind his piece. He hopes it serves as a reminder for others to stand up for what they believe in, just as those who came before us on campus once did.

Anna Blasinski

Sometimes, college life is stressful. It’s easy to get sick of running from class to class through all that red brick. But for me, CPA is a space where I can leave everything else behind. After walking through the arches of its entrances, I go to rehearsal in a classroom for Stage Left shows, down to sing in the tunnel-like practice rooms, or onstage for a production. 

Right now, we’re in the middle of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, adapted to resemble the Woodstock festival in 1969 (seen in my interior photo). I have a small role, leaving me plenty of time to stare around the theater and think about poetry! I actually found that here, time was the most helpful part of my writing process. I’d write a couplet and think about the best ways to add another before returning to the doc. I also decided to work in some references to Shakespeare. “A fine frenzy” is from Midsummer, “the world is more than a stage” calls to mind “all the world’s a stage” from As You Like It, and “they stumble that run fast” is Friar Lawrence’s warning from Romeo & Juliet. 

Overall, I wanted to represent the duality of theater and how it relates to college life through the vessel of CPA. In theater, there are moments of loud, organized chaos, but there are also peaceful moments in the wings, watching you watch your castmates’ hard work come together. This is reminiscent of how it’s easy to get sick of the chaos of college. Often, we want graduation to get here as fast as possible, but it’s also good to take time to appreciate that college is built for people to learn more about their passions. Although challenging, the duplex form let me weave these ideas together.

For CPA

Anna is a freshman Professional Writing and Creative Writing double major. Her works include short stories across all genres, poetry, and the first draft of a novel that she may or may not do something with someday. When not writing, she can be found reading (naturally), performing in plays and musicals, or painting her nails.

Gracelyn Spires

Writing this poem was unexpectedly emotional for me. As an education major, I don’t spend much time in the engineering building, but whenever I do, I’m struck by a strange sense of comfort. It’s not the architecture or the layout—it’s the quiet presence of someone I love who is far away, someone who does belong in that world of gears, equations, and design. The building has become a stand-in for him. Writing about it meant writing about missing him, but also about finding a sense of connection in an unlikely place.

Even though I’m not an engineering ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵ, I’ve found myself in the building more often than I expected—waiting for a friend, studying in a quiet corner, or just passing through on my way somewhere else. Over time, those visits started to feel almost ritualistic, like small, silent check-ins with someone I miss. The hum of machines, the quiet intensity of ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵs working, even the smell of the building—all of it became strangely familiar. It’s a space that reminds me of someone important, but it’s also become a space that’s mine in a quiet, reflective way.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was capturing that emotional duality—the sterile, technical setting of the building against the warmth and ache of missing someone. I didn’t want the poem to be overly sentimental, but I also didn’t want to flatten what is a very personal and real feeling for me. I write poetry often, but this piece felt different because of how vulnerable it is. It made me think more intentionally about how places can carry emotion, how memory can live in a space that technically has nothing to do with us. I also learned to trust the reader—to allow space for interpretation, while still guiding them toward what matters. As a poet, I’m drawn to quiet moments and complex feelings, and this poem let me lean into that fully. As a person, it reminded me how love and longing can show up in the most surprising places.

The glass hums...

Gracelyn Spires is a first-year Integrated Social Studies major at ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵ. Her poem, The Glass Hums, reflects on memory, connection, and the quiet weight of absence, using architectural and electrical imagery to explore emotional space. She enjoys showing dogs and values time spent with the people she loves.

Brian Mackintosh

When writing this poem I went through a range of experiences. I decided to think about what buildings I had most of my memories in, and I determined that the McVey Data Science Building was the most memorable. However, I had to figure out which memories mesh well and should be included in my poem. This proved to be difficult especially due to the building housing so many memories for me. For instance, working as a teaching assistant for different professors in the building gave rise to many unique experiences. An example is how the bottom floor’s tiles match the stairs, whereas the higher floors use different tiling, and how one of my classes had the power go out every class. This memory brought back other memories of technology issues, such as some of the doors constantly pulling themselves shut, practically disabling them. Going down memory lane when writing this essay was certainly fun since not every memory is always negative. I can confidently say that I would never have realized how many memories I had of McVey without writing this.

Shiny Rust

A shiny new building, pretty on the outside.
Oh so perfect for the outsiders.

       Perfection continues for our outside investors,
       The first floor matching stair and floor.

The other floors matching floor and floor.
Just as the sign matches rust more and more.

       As the sign rusts, so does the budget.
       Unable to do more than abet the investors.

The abetted investors gather at the front door.
Unaware of the cheap wiring disabling doors.

       Cheap wiring cuts out electricity, disabling classrooms.
       Students waiting in darkness, waiting to resume.

No way for my class to resume, darkness remains inside.
A shiny new building, pretty on the outside.

Brian Mackintosh is a Sophomore Computer Science major, and enjoys making mods for games.