Haleigh Woodlief has been named the winner of the ninth annual Paul Rice Poetry Broadside Series Contest for her poem, “The Princess.”

The poem is based on the classic fairy tale, “Sleeping Beauty.” “I’ve always loved to read retellings of fairy tales,” says Woodlief, a junior English major from Myrtle Beach, “but I didn't actually have an entire poem planned out until I wrote the first line: ‘Tell me whose trumpet sounds when the princess has been vanquished …’ I began to wonder what exactly may have happened if the story had been true.”

As the winning poet, Woodlief will receive a $100 gift card to the CCU bookstore and 25 copies of the broadside, which will be produced by the end of the semester in an edition of 100 numbered copies.

Woodlief, as well as honorable mention winners Austin Pinckney’s for his poem “Baptism” and Portia Mellott for “Enlightenment,” were awarded by the contest’s final judge, award-winning poet Janice N. Harrington of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

To acquire a copy of “The Princess” broadside, contact Dan Albergotti at 843-349-2420 or via e-mail at albergot@coastal.edu. A requested donation of $1 per copy directly supports the the Paul Rice Poetry Broadside Series, created by the CCU Department of English in memory of the late Paul Rice, a poet, CCU English professor and songwriter who died in 2004.