Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- Six braved public scrutiny last Friday night and six walked away, bearing literary loot and authentic, hand-drawn, poetry nerd "noserags."

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Lee Henrikson won an audience award as "Best Emily Dickinson Who Doesn't Look Anything Like Emily Dickinson" April 27, 2007, at the Palmer Depot.

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It was a successful launch for the first-ever Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson poetry reading and look-alike contest at the Palmer Depot. It was a debut public reading for some look-alike contestants and it may have been the first time the foot-stomping, banjo-picking Carhartt Brothers band ever played for a poetry reading, but 19th-century poet Walt Whitman would probably have enjoyed the show. Emily Dickinson, also a 19th-century poet and known as an eccentric recluse, would probably have just stayed home.

The event, recognizing National Poetry Month, celebrated the local soul more than local talent.

"I want poetry to be more central to our lives, not just out in the periphery," said Fireside Books owner David Cheezem, the event sponsor. "Put Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson together and you really have a sense of the soul of America. We need our soul back."

But talent turned out too. Teeland High teacher Joe Nolting stirred the audience's emotions with two strong, war-related readings of Whitman: "Beat! Beat! Drums!" and "O' Captain! My Captain!"

Teacher Carolyn Covington earned titters in reading a gossipy and vivid letter written by Dickinson.

Both won top honors from the judges. In fact, all six contestants won awards from either the audience or judges. Sid McCausland, a Richard Nixon-impersonating Whitman reader who mugged for the audience at every opportunity, won an after-the-fact award created in his honor: Best Impersonation of a Public Figure as Walt Whitman.

-- Rindi White