The Creative Reactions Contest, a new initiative of Princeton University Concerts (PUC), gave student participants the opportunity to attend a free concert and write a response in any form — blank verse, prose, poetry, narrative, even lyrics. Marna Seltzer, director of PUC, said the annual contest is “designed to foster reflection on the impact of hearing classical music, as perceived by Princeton students.”

The 130 students who entered this year’s contest received a free ticket to attend one of five PUC concerts and were asked to write a response. The entries were assessed in three rounds by 11 judges, including people in the arts from the University and community.

Susannah Sharpless, a certificate student in the Program in Creative Writing at the Lewis Center, earned first place for her poem, “Space and Time.”

“The pianist sits and waits in her red shoes/for the violinist to herald synchronization,/as a moth makes circles/out of the difference between darkness and light/unites them in his untraceable orbit.”

— Susannah Sharpless, Class of 2015

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