Our current co-coordinator Courtney Sato '09 debuted on our school's website (and as a result, a bit of WAA) as one of 40 winners of 2009 Watson J. Foundation Fellowship for Travel and Exploration. The following is a truncated and edited version of the press release published by Wellesley Collge for Public Affairs. To read the full version, which is not that more interesting than this one, visit http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Releases/2009/040209b.html....The daughter of Greg and Faith Sato of Honolulu, Hawaii, she will continue her study [poetry] on place with the project “'Writing Toward Home’: Tracing Poets and Places,” funded by a prestigious Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellowship. Sato, one of 40 college seniors to be awarded the fellowship, will receive $28,000 for a year of travel and exploration.
During her year abroad, Sato will travel to the homes and neighborhoods of international poets to explore how their sense of home influenced their writing and to build “a vocabulary of spaces and places.” Her current plan is to live in Provence, France; Bellaghy, Ireland; St. Lucia and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago; Prague, Czech Republic; and Worpswede, Germany [while I'm still stuck here].
In addition to immersing herself in several poets’ playgrounds, Sato said she will create her own poems in response to the settings and share them with the communities through poetry readings, literary publications and meetings with other poets.
“I want exposure and to absorb myself in these places— but I also want to give back to the people and share my poetry with them,” she said.
Sato planned her trip’s conclusion in Germany, where one of her favorite writers, Rainer Maria Rilke, spent much of his time. Unlike the other poets she will be studying, Rilke lived a nomadic lifestyle.
“A century has passed since Rilke wrote to love the ‘questions themselves,’ a notion that mirrors the Watson’s mission,” she wrote in her fellowship proposal. “I envision my Watson year as a journey perfectly suited for a poet: an expedition of great inner solitude, of ripening poetic voice, where I expose and develop my appreciation for poetry with others from diverse poetic traditions.”
[then there's an uninteresting paragraph about what other winners will do with their fellowship, followed by an equally uninteresting and long comment from the program's director]
...While at Wellesley, Sato has served as president of the Hawaii Club and co-coordinator of the Wellesley Asian Alliance, has participated in the Wellesley Dancers and has worked as a public speaking tutor. Following her year abroad, Sato hopes to pursue a career that will allow her to promote the arts, and may possibly pursue an MFA in poetry.
“I know I will continue writing,” she said. “That’s the most important thing.”
To read more about the fellowship, visit www.watsonfellowship.org/site/index.html.
To alleviate our minus profit, WAA will *exclusively* sell Courtney's autographed photographs in preparation for her future literary greatness. Please contact our current treasurer Katherine Lu at klu@wellesley.edu if you're interested.
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