McGee catches contest’s top prize with ease

With fishing as an extended metaphor for a lost relationship. Winston-Salem State University’s Jeremy McGee walked home with the top prize in the North Carolina State University poetry contest.A win that he said freaked him out.McGee is a junior English major with a minor in art. He said he has won poetry contests before. His first was in 1998 while at the University of Tampa. In 1999 he placed second in another poetry contest. McGee said the poem entitled “Catch and Release” was written for the creative writing class led by Dr. Stormy Stipe. Upon learning that he had won the competition, McGee was invited to N.C. State where he participated in a reception with about 100 people, many of whom were competitors.”The poem will be published in the News and Observer in Raleigh,” said McGee. “It’s an extended metaphor. We were told to write about something deep in our past.”The poem itself was judge by poet Eleanor Wilner. He said that at the reception for the event he felt a bit weird because he was standing with some experienced poets. But the fact the he had been chosen still made him smile.He added that the main metaphor centers on fishing and how sometimes you catch the fish and then let it go. He paralleled that with a relationship that he had been through.”It has a lot of extended metaphors.”