Katherine M. Pownell, recipient of the 2008 Bluestem Scholarship:

Excerpts from Pownell's winning work:

TREE PICTURE

          Melissa lived in one of those new apartment complexes that pop up out of a formula of pastel siding, hollow pillars, with manicured patches of very dark green grass.  Inside are walls and ceilings of hollow light drywall, fake wooden cabinets and doors, and slick, shiny new appliances that hold the place down.  The air inside is stale with materials that have been stripped and processed.  It becomes nauseating when mixed with the smell of miscrowaved plastic and syrupy oils, and the oven cooking things from slick cardboard boxes.

          The apartment was the kind with one nice leather couch that is just a little too small for comfort and a wide TV that's blackness makes it the focal point for the room — where all gravitate.  The windows are covered with heavy maroon curtains taht are dusty and faded with neglect.  THe shelves are lined with rows of DVDs, colorful and hollow.  In the bedroom, the dry sterility of the walk-in closet makes it the best place to keep new, mass produced clothes with their thin, unprotecting cotton.  ...

Last Updated December 15, 2008