Leslie Leeds Poetry Prize – 2024

From left to right, Dr. Natalie Catasús, Caitlin Price, Tom Cody and Noah Roy.

The Leslie Leeds Poetry Prize is sponsored by the English Department at CCSU. It was created by former English professor Barry Leeds to celebrate the memory of his daughter Leslie.

Winner: Noah Roy 

Finalist: Tom Cody 

Finalist: Caitlin Price 

Judge: Dr. Natalie Catasús 

2024 Winner 

Reminder 

By Noah Roy 

She follows me everywhere I go. 

Whenever my path crosses a mirror, 

I glance hesitantly, but she stares back. 

I still hear her voice in the overtones of my own, 

an unrelenting reminder. 

Her body. It plagues my shadow; 

curves blooming where muscle should harvest. 

The slant of a jaw melts into the slope of a waist— 

this body is not mine. This skin is too tight. 

She is a caterpillar, I am a moth; 

we are separate, yet the memory of her 

remains fused into my skeleton. 

We are conjoined twins, but my double is a ghost 

and we are bound at the soul. 

2024 Finalists 

Smaller than a Whale Fall 

By Tom Cody 

An oyster at the belly of the ocean lies, mummified; 

The still-wet aged body an inflated albumen, forever un-dried, 

The loving earth cradling, 

the hair-like kelp cilia fading, 

leaving her alone and unstimulated in the barren, powder-soft pit. 

The fearsome waves press down upon one another until no longer restless; 

the lines of each water-lick tracing each shifting shape, pressed flush so tightly, 

room for not even a feather, minute, violent, still fighting, 

failing to tear the paltry tie holding her twin-cups together. 

The breakdown of her tissues undisturbed, unweathered 

by even the mildest shifting, such that the shapes of her remain 

and will, so long as she is kept unstirred, un-cleft-in-twain. 

Who could say she is rotting when the pressure is too great, even, to peek? 

And so, instead, the bivalve sleeps. 

Here to Lay Beside You 

By Caitlin Price 

as always,  

i hear jean-benoît in my ear whispering “my baby blue is a new star in the sky,” 

and i’m sat here dreaming of a kinder turn of events. 

two years ago i bought a ring with your birthday on it something small, my first paycheck. 

little keepsake of saudade 

i wear that ring like it’s something sacred, like a constant memory 

despite emerald stains on my finger, it’s kept there safe like a tattoo. 

feels like i’m writing a neverending postcard, like you’ll be back soon 

if i close my eyes and sleep to dream, your voice is the lullaby   

i tell you, it’s snowing down here nowadays 

you don’t reply but you twinkle for me instead  

what i’ll do when “do make sure to feel better soon” doesn’t work and 

anything more overwhelms me 

when it feels like i’m picking at wounds  

like first graders bite their fingernails 

and when the memory of an unknown grazes against my heart 

like a newborn’s hand wrapped around a finger 

even then you know you glow so prettily 

so i’ll rest for you and shut my eyes 

unfinished sonnets whispered through a microphone 

at 2:34am you make your way home i know 

but now it’s pouring out and i’m still angry 

and not at you, never at you 

angels come to me whispering three syllables but 

wish-me-wells do nothing in the end 

my sight for sore eyes i always get scared that 

you’re up there all alone 

so please, when the clouds fall asleep and it’s dim and lonely 

pretend i’m here singing you lullabies 

like “i need you.” 

Header image courtesy of Jason Sabetta

Audio Produced by Dame Martin and Daniel Miller

Noah Roy, Tom Cody, and Caitlin Price are all students at CCSU