Westover Graduate Reads Poetry at Sunken Garden Festival

#MIDDLEBURY #WESTOVER

Westover graduate Leah Nashel, a member of the Class of 2016 from Newtown, was one of five Connecticut student poets chosen to read selections of their original work at the closing night of Hill-Stead Museum’s Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in Farmington on Aug. 17. (Submitted photo)

Leah Nashel, a member of Westover School’s Class of 2016, was one of five student poets from Connecticut who read their original poetry at the closing night of the Hill-Stead Museum’s 2016 Sunken Garden Poetry Festival on the museum grounds in Farmington in August. Nashel, a Newtown resident, and the other student poets were selected this spring after taking part in Hill-Stead’s Fresh Voices Student Poetry Competition.

Westover graduate Leah Nashel (left), a member of the Class of 2016 from Newtown, is shown at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival with fellow alumna Bridget Hinz, a member of the Class of 2009 and a graduate student in art history who has been working as an intern at Hill-Stead Museum this summer. (Submitted photo)

Among those on hand to hear Nashel’s poetry reading was Bridget Hinz, a member of Westover’s Class of 2009, who is working as an intern at Hill-Stead Museum this summer. This is the second time that Hinz has served as an intern at Hill-Stead. During her senior year at Westover, she was selected as the first Sonja Osborn Museum Studies Intern under a program established in conjunction with Hill-Stead.

This is the second year in a row that a Westover student poet was chosen to participate in the museum’s poetry series. Joscie Norris, a member of Westover’s Class of 2016 from Roxbury, was one of several student poets to read their poetry at the 2015 festival.

The student poets selected receive composition and presentation mentoring from professional poets. The festival also prints a chapbook featuring a selection of poems written by the students. In addition to the student poets’ readings, the August event featured a reading by poet Kwame Dawes and a performance by the musical group The Mystic Jammers. It was the fifth evening of poetry readings offered this summer as part of the festival.

Nashel read three of her poems at the event: “Aunt Denise,” “Child’s Play,” and “Cancelled Soliloquy from Hamlet.” In addition to those three poems, the Fresh Voices chapbook also included her poems “Time Well Spent” and “Haunting.”

Several of Nashel’s poems, along with some of her artwork, have appeared in Westover’s art and literary magazine, The Lantern. During the summer of 2015, she studied acting at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada, as that year’s recipient of Westover’s Andy Arts Award. This fall she is attending The National Theater Institute before joining the mid-year class of 2020 at Brandeis University, where she plans to pursue her interests in acting, writing, studio art, and vocal performance.

A number of Westover students have been honored for their poetry this year on the state and regional level:

• In addition to her selection as a Hill-Stead Fresh Voices Student Poet, Nashel received a Gold Key from the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers: Regional Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Joscie Norris and Kat Krissel, a member of the Class of 2016 from Cornwall Bridge, received Silver Keys, while four other members of the Class of 2016 – Emily Amarante of Middlebury, Christina DeBartolomeo of Sandy Hook, Nola Iwasaki of Southbury, and Isabelle Morrissey of New Milford – received Honorable Mentions.
• Abby Hodson, a member of the Class of 2017 from Monroe, was a finalist for the Smith College Poetry Prize for Girls in New England.
• Shanshan Chan, a member of the Class of 2018 from Edison, New Jersey, received an honorable mention at the Thornton Wilder Writing Competition.
• Joscie Norris received First Prize at the Connecticut Poetry Society Lynn DeCaro Poetry Contest, while Patricia Collins, a member of the Class of 2017 from Darien, received Third Prize.

Westover’s connection to Hill-Stead dates back to the school’s founding in 1909. The school’s architect was Theodate Pope Riddle, a friend and former student of Westover’s founder Mary Robbins Hillard. Earlier, Theodate had designed Hill-Stead as her family’s home. Following Theodate’s death in 1946, Hill-Stead became a museum, as stipulated in her will.