They range from fresh-faced teenagers to seasoned grad students, small-town kids to urban sophisticates. Depending on your point of view, the topics explored by this year's recipients of departmental and university recognition range from esoteric (examining the effect of two parallel tethers on atomic force microscope distributions) to altruistic (working on sustainable development in rural areas of Uganda) to downright enviable (conducting a photographic investigation of Gothic architecture in England and France).
There are, of course, the usual, remarkable suspects—those who earn the top grade point average in the department or are singled out as most outstanding for cumulative performance within and beyond the classroom. There are others who are tapped for the potential they have shown. The Divinity School, for example, awards a preaching award to fledgling pastors, an encouragement of sorts rather than a "best of" prize.
In selecting the students you will meet on these pages, we strove for a broad cross-section of class years and disciplines. For a comprehensive list of student distinctions, see www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/05/awards07.html.
Tracy Gold: Giving voice to emotion
Horseback riding and writing have been Tracy Gold's passions from a young age, and her writing is often inspired by her experiences riding. Gold, a rising sophomore from Towson, Maryland, attended Carver Center for Arts and Technology, a public magnet school, where she concentrated in literary arts. She plans to major in English and tentatively hopes to pursue a career involving some combination of teaching and writing. Gold is this year's recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize, awarded through the English department for a poem or group of poems by an undergraduate.
"This poem originated from an assignment for [English professor] Deborah Pope's class, 'Writing and Memory.' The assignment suggested writing about a place. I combined two places, as well as my own experiences with those of a friend from home, whom the poem is mostly about. Seeing (and smelling) this dead deer, mutilated so mysteriously, triggered memories of my friend's father's mysterious and traumatic death. Though I did not always get along with this friend, I had grown up with her at the barn, and her father's death changed not only my relationship with her, but my relationship with my own father.
"In writing this poem, I was trying to accomplish what I want in all of my poetry—to give voice to emotions and experiences that changed me, in a way that will allow readers to identify with these emotions and experiences enough potentially to change them, too, or at least make them think. Yet, in the initial stages of writing, my only goal is to get it out. There are some topics (in my opinion, the best topics) that give me an ultimatum: Write, or go insane. This poem was inspired by one of them."
The Smell of a Dead Buck's Bones
She knows the smell of a dead buck's bones:
it is the smell of burning leaves;
of the red jacket covered with white horse hair,
mud and sweat;
of the stagnant water pooling in the stream
she's trotting by
when her horse spooks
at the dead buck.
Thin grey antlers jut out of his coated head,
crushed against his ribcage.
His eyes—still glassy
stare into the empty skeleton.
His hind end lies a few strides beyond his head,
legs spread out in the pose of a fully extended run,
as if his spine
split mid leap.
She knows the smell of a dead buck's bones:
it is the leather of the brand new Mercury Mariner
that her father
shot himself in.
The bloody parts were replaced
and every day now, she drives it to the barn
where she rides through fields of
dead bucks, burning leaves and stagnant water.
She doesn't know how he died;
Was he hit by a car, left to drag himself to the field,
almost reaching the forest?
Did he sell his liquor store only to crawl
from the bed to the couch and back again,
hitting his wife and screaming at his daughter
between drunken stupors?
"I hate my father"
she would say,
before he died.
She was quiet, at his funeral:
the smell of a dead buck's bones,
burning leaves, and brand new leather.
Corey Sobel: Scripting a cultural disconnect
Although he came to Duke on a football scholarship, Corey Sobel's pivotal field experiences have had nothing to do with athletic success. Sobel '07 designed his own Program II major, "Writing Conflict: Reporting International and Ethnic Violence," to focus on the intersection of philosophy, political violence, and journalism.
Last summer Sobel lived and worked in Nakuru, Kenya, where he wrote educational materials about HIV/AIDS for Kenyans living with the disease. When he returned to campus in the fall for his senior year, Sobel signed up for a series of screenwriting classes. The resulting screenplay, WinterSummer, won the Reynolds Price Award for Scriptwriting, given by the department of theater studies to an undergraduate for the best original script for stage, screen, or television.
"What struck me the most about Kenya—about HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa in general—is that, among all the gender issues and problems with domestic violence in the region, the most nefarious manifestation was when disloyal husbands or boyfriends traveled, became infected with HIV, and then came home and forced their (otherwise abstinent) significant others into having unprotected sex. The script, my first, was a way of considering this kind of abuse, its implications for African men, its consequences on African women.
"One of the central characters in the play is Robert McCain, a twenty-five-year-old American man who has traveled with his church group to Kenya. There, he meets Joyce Odhiambo, a young Kenyan woman whose husband died of AIDS. Joyce refuses to be tested and is living with the stigma of having had an HIV-positive husband. Robert reintroduces her to the possibilities of her life, and the two fall in love. But the Americans' time [in Kenya] has run out, and they have traveled to Nairobi to catch their flight back to the U.S. In this scene, Robert is considering his life, wondering if there's anything worth returning to in America."
Excerpt fromWinterSummer
FAIRVIEW HOTEL LOBBY Robert is trudging down the front staircase with his luggage, hung over from last night. It is about 10 a.m., and the lobby is filled with people coming in and going out.
He reaches the base of the stairs and looks around. He sees American Woman #1 in one of the red leather chairs behind him. He tries to look away but she catches his attention and smiles. He has no choice but to go over and sit in the chair next to hers.
American Woman #1 has her feet resting on top of several large suitcases. She is smiling though exhausted in posture. She watches Robert take a seat.
American Woman #1: Out of Africa, huh?
Robert: (surprised at the allusion) Yeah. American Woman #1: I'm sorry we didn't arrange to stay longer. It's a shame, all the things we couldn't… She doesn't finish and exhales and looks at Robert and smiles.
American Woman #1: This is the first time I've been outside the country. Robert: Haven't been to Canada?
She laughs at this, not acknowledging the sarcasm.
American Woman #1: Do you think about all the places we flew over, on our way here?
Robert is looking down at his lap and shakes his head. American Woman #1: I was looking at the television screen in front of me on the plane. There was the line…
Robert: That showed where the plane was. American Woman #1: Oh yes. And, for the eight hours from London to Nairobi, I didn't watch a single movie. Not a TV show. I just watched the plane nudge over Europe, and then over the Mediterranean, North Africa. We flew over France and Italy. Did you look?
Robert: I was in the aisle.
American Woman #1: (smiling apologetically) My face was pressed against that cold window, and I watched mountains in France. I was amazed, seeing them all red and brown and yellow. I've never thought of France as having these mountains, looking so bare in the summer time.
A pair of housekeepers giggle as they walk by. We can hear the clatter of the nearby restaurant.
American Woman #1: I began to cry when we went over the Sahara. Robert is surprised by this, looks up at the woman. She is getting a bit flustered and looks like she's deciding whether or not she should cry. American Woman #1: And now I can say I've been to Africa. Everyone I'll talk to at home, my kids, even my husband. They'll assume that everything between America and Kenya, that I've covered that.
Robert is watching her now. American Woman #1: But I haven't seen anything, have I? I've been to two countries in the world. I can tell people I've seen the Sahara. But what if they ask me about it? I can't tell them about the heat or the sun or what I wore to stay cool. All I'll be able to talk about are colors, shapes. And my children will ask me about Kenya. And there, well I'll tell them about children with torn clothing and food that hurt my stomach. Bottled water, animals I've dreamed of seeing since I was a little girl.
Robert waits for more but the American Woman has caught herself. She looks up at him. She smiles.
American Woman #1: I'm fifty-five. How old are you?
Robert:Twenty-five.
She nods. American Woman #1: It's strange sitting here, knowing you'll never step foot on this floor again. Isn't that just weird? She waits for Robert to respond. When he doesn't, she smiles and becomes quiet. We can hear the chatter of American women coming down the stairs. American Woman #1: I just wish we'd arranged for a few weeks longer. I know I'll be sitting in the house, watching television. And I'll start to think about spending that time here. I know, it's just going to make me sad, thinking about that, thinking about this place. The American women catch sight of American Woman #1 and Robert and head over. She sees her friends and sucks in her breath and then exhales in resignation. Robert is looking at her, and she smiles and pats his leg and stands to meet the others. We are left looking at Robert…
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