Sue C Boynton Poetry Contest

George F Drake honors the memory of our Grandmother, Sue C Boynton

May 17, 2019 By Administrator

Message from my sister, Jan Crook Pierson, regarding the Sue C Boynton Poetry Awards. Sue Boynton was my grandmother, and there are many of my siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, and friends who remember her with love and respect. In her later years she wrote poetry, and put together a book for family and friends. Later, an amazing group came together to honor her by creating an annual poetry contest. This has grown exponentially.

***Jan Crook Pierson with George F. Drake***

Last night in Bellingham at the Sue C. Boynton Awards Ceremony, professor (WWU in Bellingham, Washington) George F. Drake (nearing 90) spoke and gave a $10,000 check to the foundation. This is a marvelous event that gives aspiring poets a chance. I have been honored to have been able to speak on behalf of our grandma Sue for 14 years. I pray our family will continue to be a part of this amazing endeavor. Grandma lectured in his sociology class and got standing ovations again and again. He adored her and called her Mother Sue. They both gave each other so much in the last few years of her life while she lived in the nursing home.

He has never forgotten her. Obviously.

Thank you who have donated every year to keep this going and to keep the Boynton family and poetry alive in Bellingham and Whatcom County. There were probably close to 200 people there last night! If you visit Bellingham, be sure to visit the Boynton Poetry Walk at the Bellingham Public Library. It’s a lovely garden walk which includes grandma Sue’s life story and those who contribute Plus the winning poems each year. Next year I hope some of the family can join me!

2019 Contest Winners

Another link to George F Drake.

The Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest has numerous reasons to be grateful to George F. Drake. Here are two:

In 1976, as a member of the Bellingham City Council, George organized a ceremony to honor those who served in elective office. A highlight of the event, held at Western Washington University, was the presence of Sue C. Boynton, then 95. George escorted her to the podium where she read a poem of her own followed by a message sent for the occasion by President Gerald Ford. In 2005, George approached Sue Boynton’s daughter, Ethel Boynton Crook, to propose naming a community poetry contest to honor Sue C. Boynton. The first Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest and Poetry Walk was held in 2006 with the enthusiastic support of the extended Boynton family.
A stalwart champion of the Contest through the intervening years, George Drake took the podium at the May 16, 2019, awards ceremony, where he presented the above photo of himself with Sue C. Boynton taken by Tore Ofteness at that 1976 event. He then presented the contest committee with an exceedingly generous surprise: a check for $10,000 to express his belief in the importance of this community poetry contest and to assure its continuation in the years to come.

Beyond the evening’s raucous and prolonged applause, the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest and all the past, present, and future poets of Whatcom County, and their fans, owe George Drake a huge THANK YOU.

Our grandmother, Sue Crocker Boynton

May 18, 2012 By Administrator

By Jan Crook Pierson

The Sue C. Boynton Poetry event in Bellingham (Washington…for those of you who don’t live in or understand the Evergreen State) was amazing. Inspiring. Fun.

Our grandmother, Sue Crocker Boynton was, when she found the moments of escape, a poet, and poetry is all about the Sue C. Boynton event. There is a quote by Erik Reece that says it well:

Poetry is the ultimate language of belonging.

Our grandmother understood the necessity of belonging and not only was her life spent in the attempt to belong, but also in the gift of bringing this sense of belonging to those she loved, whether it was her own family or those around her, and it always included her poetry and the arts.

This same spirit lives on in this amazing foundation which gives a venue to others with the same heart and spirit” poets – who have often gone unrecognized. Our grandmother is gone now, but others who write can be honored and known through this yearly contest.

I, as one of her many grandchildren, got to be the one who spoke about her to the large crowd of winners and their families in the beautiful glass-encased cruise terminal overlooking Bellingham Bay on May 10, 2012.

Sue N Crocker & Solon R Boynton Engagement Early 1900s I was privileged to explain to these poets and their families that Sue C. Boynton was a real person, a strong and dynamic woman who walked into their town when it was still a territory. I was able to share her early, formidable memories when, in 1906 as a new bride, she disembarked the steamship from Seattle and walked up a boardwalk lined with saloons and brothels with her physician husband, facing a new life in the rough and rugged Northwest.

Brave and strong, she lived for nearly 98 years, most of those in a town she learned to love and a town that learned to love her. I felt so honored to share my own special memories of growing up with someone who became a rock to me, but also a soft place to fall. And how many times did I and my sisters and brother and cousins fall, and need her and our grandfather.

The Sue C. Boynton Poetry contest, a program of Whatcom Poetry Series, and a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, lives on to honor poets, but the founder lives on in my heart and the hearts of so many of her grandchildren. And we honor her memory in a special, meaningful way.

This was written by my sister, Jan Pierson. There’s more about us on my personal website.

Luke Reinschmidt-Sue C Boynton Poetry Contest Winner

March 4, 2011 By Administrator

Bellingham, Washington has an amazing poetry contest in honor of my maternal grandmother, Sue C. Boynton. Here is one of the 2010 winners, Luke Reinschmidt, presenting his work, “I Remember.”

Kevin Murphy-Sue C Boynton Poetry Winner

March 3, 2011 By Administrator

Bellingham, Washington has an amazing poetry contest in honor of my maternal grandmother, Sue C. Boynton. Here is one of the 2010 winners, Kevin Murphy, presenting his work, “The Falling Apart.”