IU Poet wins several awards, continues to develop

Mary Ramsay loves to write, but when it comes time to share her work with others, she's more prone to fold up her poem, stuff it in the shirt pocket of the reader and run away in the opposite direction. \n"The things you write in poetry are very exposing. Even if it is not about yourself, it came out of your heart, and it is still a piece of you, and it's hard to do that," she said. "It is so much easier to read other people's poetry out loud."\nAt 47, Ramsay describes herself as a person who is not done growing as an individual or as a writer, and her work and efforts so far have proven she's just begun. \nRamsay, a part-time student at IU and an employee at the IU Foundation, is also an amateur poet, though her writing career didn't fully and officially begin until she won three writing awards in September, she said.\nRamsay forgot that she had even submitted her work. So she was understandably shocked when she received a letter from the Kentucky State Poetry Society informing her that she had won first place for her poem "Woodstove" and a first honorable mention for "Meeting Steele's Boatman on Exhibit," a poem about a T.S. Steele painting on exhibit at the art museum.\n"I saw this one piece and was so struck by it, and I ended up writing this poem," Ramsay said. \nBut the good news didn't end there. A week later, she received an e-mail from the Utmost Christian Writers Foundation, a Canadian organization, saying that she had won an honorable mention for a poem titled "The Blessing."\n"I kept thinking that I just got to get over this fear of rejection because it comes with the territory (of writing)," she said. "I had already submitted to a contest, but I decided to look around and find another place." \nRamsay was inspired by the excitement she said she felt when she won the first three awards.\n"It all came in the lump," Ramsay said. "And I could hardly just stop jumping up and down and squealing. I couldn't stop thinking that I had won, and it was, oh my, very exciting." \nRamsay traveled to Kentucky to accept her award and read her poem in front of other poets who had entered the contest. \n"I've been amazed, and I'm still surprised," Ramsay said. "The world is full of wonderful writers, and I am a long way away from being of that caliber."\nAlthough Ramsay said she has been writing for years, she was never formally educated in writing. \n"I went digging in my dresser drawer and I had this poem I wrote when I was 8 years old, and I found it at my mother's home," Ramsay said with a smile. Laughing, she said: "I wrote it while we were playing school, and my play teacher gave it an A+."\nAs a child, Ramsay said she didn't write regularly and often wrote "little ditties, like nursery rhymes."\nAs time went on, the subject matter of Ramsay's writing changed.\n"I wanted to write more serious ideas that were in my head," she said. "I just got more and more into it, and then it became a habit to put the thoughts and ideas I had to express into a poem."\nInspired by her recent success in poetry contests, Ramsay said she hopes to submit to publications in the future.\nThough she is optimistic, Ramsay does know that rejection is also a part of the submission process. \n"I know someone will send me a letter that says, 'Thanks but no thanks' because it comes with the territory. But it's worth the risk," Ramsay said. "Not that it makes my stomach any calmer when I do it because it still just turns right over."\nRamsay said she still finds herself expressing similar emotions as she did in her early career when she began writing and sharing her work with others.\n"Once those writing submissions are in the mail, I just want to crawl under the chair," she said.\nRamsay's poem for the Utmost Christian Society is posted on its Web site, www.utmostchristianwriters.com. She said she has already received positive feedback.\n"Someone came to me and told me that it made her cry," she said.\nRamsay said she has received similar responses from groups that have heard her poetry.\n"I have been told by a person in the group, 'I like the things you write, Mary, because you make me think,' and I like that someone would stop and pause and mull over what is in there," she said. "I hope they mull it over and chew on what was in there and feel and taste and hear whatever is there"