Student Profile: Kyla Marshell

In 2007, Spelman College became the first historically black college or university to receive an endowed prize for poetry as administered by the Academy of American Poets. Senior Kyla Marshell, C'2009, was recently named the first recipient of the prize which honors the late microbiologist Edith A. Hambie, a supporter of young people's creativity, leadership and expression.

Marshell, a senior English major/creative writing minor from Scarborough, ME, is a published poet and will serve as the editor-in-chief of Spelman's literary journal, Focus Magazine. Marshell was also the runner-up of the Ellen LaForge Poetry Prize, a finalist in Agnes Scott Writers' Festival Competition, and a 2007 Philbrick Poetry Award finalist.

Nikky Finney, famed poet and judge for this year's Prize, offered a few comments regarding her selection of Kyla Berry as the contest winner:

[Kyla Marshell] has a lovely hand for words and ideas. She is comfortable with the epigraph, with imagination, and with her own curiosity. She travels easily between the traditional stanzas of poetry and the quirky prose form. Her honesty on the page is diligent. Her human imperfection lights the way for the reader's own human imperfections. Her use of simile--"the phone tiny as a pearl" and "unfolding me like a chinese fan"--as well as her original way of saying--"red arms of sirens" and "how could he love me if he can't even reach me?"--is memorable. I wish her the best with her life and work.

The Prize, which will be presented to a student poet in perpetuity, is funded by the Family and Friends of Dr. Hambie and named for her to honor her love of creativity that spanned both the sciences and the arts. Dr. Hambie was a long-time member of the Center of Disease Control's Office of Minority Health and dedicated herself to fostering interest in health disparities and public health research.

Professor Opal Moore, director of Spelman's writing program, notes that the Hambie Prize enhances the writing program's mission to encourage creative expression across the disciplines. "We never know where our next great writer will be born," she notes.