Honors College student Niina Pollari participated in a three-day poetry workshop taught by Sarah Lawrence College MFA faculty member Laure-Anne Bosselaar. The Palm Beach Post, reporting on this event (Jan. 20, 2006), published one of Niina's poems, below, as well as Niina's response to the question of what poetry means to her. Niina's answer: "Poetry is a fearless fight against the futility of language, and it is necessary and important because it has a place within the human experience for as long as the inexpressible exists in the world." In February 2007, Niina won an honorable mention in the Early English Books Online essay contest and is now in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence.

Two other Honors College students, Kyle Ashby and Maria Hall, also were a part of the second annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival that took place in Delray Beach.

I'm Dreaming, Roethke (A Villanelle)

by Niina Pollari

Perhaps it's better when we do not dream.
The morning just before the dawn is long
A blank quiet keeps the gloaming on and on.
We are a strange kind, you, soldier, and I
We fall and fall but we will never die.
Perhaps it's better when we do not dream.
The point of dew responds when I ask why
The sleepless nights allow me liberty.
A blank quiet keeps the gloaming on and on.
Sunlight keeps the urgency alive;
The night's a different sort of undenial.
Perhaps it's better when we do not dream.
Trill and trill and I will not respond.
I am rather out of mind tonight.
A blank quiet keeps the gloaming on and on.
We keep a vigil; we know what to do.
The nights are longer when I think of you.
Perhaps it's better when we do not dream.
After the deadness, as the hours go by
Aurora stretches her skin across the sky.
Perhaps it's better when we do not dream.
A blank quiet keeps the gloaming on and on.