And the Winner Is . . .

As WinC and The Muse Writers Center began to embark on our fourth annual poetry reading at the Norfolk NEON Festival, we decided to hold our first annual ODU poetry contest open to all students at Old Dominion University.

This year's winning poem was written by Nishat Ahmed entitled, "How Could This Be a Time for Music?" Ahmed will be performing his winning poem at this year's NEON Festival Poetry Reading this Friday, October 19, at 8 p.m. Make sure to come out to support him and his fellow poets.

Nishat Ahmed is a 3rd year poetry student in Old Dominion University’s MFA Creative Writing Program. Winner of Old Dominion’s 2018 Academy of American Poetry Prize, his work revolves around the pursuit of unpacking grief, identity, loss and love. Currently he is poetry editor for both Four Ties Lit Review and ODU’s Literary Magazine, Barely South Review. His work has appeared in Sobotka, Words Dance and has been performed at TEDxUIUC. When not writing poetry, one can probably find him frequenting the local Chipotle while listening to Fall Out Boy.