Photo courtesy of Max Wilhelm
Charlie Watts ’25 has been selected to repesent Mount Holyoke College at the Glascock Poetry Contest. “I would really love for people to feel seen,” she says regarding her poetry reading.
The 102th Kathryn Irene Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest will take place at Mount Holyoke College on Apr. 3 and 4, 2025. It is the oldest continuously-running intercollegiate poetry contest in the country. This year, all of the contestants hail from either historically women’s colleges or gender-diverse women’s colleges. In the days leading up to the contest, Mount Holyoke News will be releasing digital-exclusive profiles of each poet-contestant.
By Isabel Dunn ’27
Books Editor
Charlie Watts ’25 doesn’t remember a time when she hasn’t been writing. This week, she will represent Mount Holyoke College at the 2025 Kathryn Irene Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest.
“I did not like poetry until high school,” Watts admitted in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “I had a teacher who showed me some Sharon Olds’ poetry, and that converted me into liking it because it was a much more confessional style.”
In her own writing, Watts hopes to draw on that confessional style. She is inspired by poets like Olds whose writing evokes a realistic, creative nonfiction style.
“There's a poem of [Olds’] called Cambridge Elegy,” Watts said. “The narrator of the poem is remembering a love interest or boyfriend who's died. And I read it on a train, and I was crying on the train.”
The selection of poems that Watts will present at the contest were written “all in one jumble” during an emotional time. She spoke about how her poetry is often about herself, but how she hopes it can connect to others.
“I would really love for people to feel seen or listened to,” she said. “I guess I write poetry a lot of times, I think, to make myself feel less alone … I would really like people to come out of this feeling more understood if their experiences are anything like mine.”
Beyond Glascock and the College, Watts hopes to continue writing in some capacity. Following her passion for working creatively, she has many artistic goals.
“I would love to be a fiction author one day eventually, just ’cause that's kind of always been the dream,” she said. “I would love to get an MFA in creative writing. I would love to be a professor of creative writing … I would just love to be surrounded by writing and a reading atmosphere.”
Alayna Khan ’27 contributed fact-checking.
