Trinity Writer Featured in Connecticut Student Poetry Circuit Readings

Gemma Feltovich ’25 has been a writer for as long as she can remember.

She grew up in a house full of books and was inspired to write at an early age. “I would read a book and write my version of it, or I would write an extra chapter to it,” said Feltovich. “In fifth grade, I took payments from classmates in the form of snacks to include them as characters in a series of stories I wrote.”

Now an English major at Trinity College with a concentration in creative writing, Feltovich is among five student writers from the state selected for this year’s Connecticut Student Poetry Circuit, which presents readings of work by young poets at local colleges.

The first reading that Feltovich will give as part of the tour will be at Trinity on Tuesday, February 18, at 4:30 p.m. in the Reese Room of the Smith House. Her 10-minute reading features selections of poetry that highlight various aspects of her recent work.

“I don’t know why I started to write poetry; I just did it, sort of instinctually,” Feltovich said. “My creativity just manifested in a specific way based on all the little turns my life took.”

Feltovich said that her interest in poetry started in high school, when she used her phone to jot down poems to express her feelings. She felt herself drawn to poetry even more during an introduction to creative writing course at Trinity with Clare M. Rossini, artist-in-residence, emerita. After taking an advanced poetry workshop with Associate Professor of English Ciaran M. Berry, Feltovich switched her concentration from literature to creative writing. She is now working on a collection of poems as her senior thesis, with support from Berry as her thesis adviser.

At Trinity, Feltovich is completing minors in Religious Studies and Hispanic Studies and works on the student-run literary magazine, The Vernacular, in which some of her poems have been published. Her poem, “Catching a Gecko: On Possession,” was also published online for the 2023 Academy of American Poets Prize as the poet selected from Trinity, and she received the 2023 John Curtis Underwood Memorial Prize in Poetry at Trinity’s Honors Day. Feltovich is a peer research assistant at Trinity’s library and a member of the Chapel Singers. She has lived in six different cities in her life—including Minneapolis, where her family currently lives—but calls Park City, Utah, her hometown.

After graduating from Trinity, Feltovich would like to work in children’s publishing. “I often felt lonely as a kid, and books were so important in my intellectual and social development. They made me feel like I belonged to something for the first time; I want every kid to feel that,” she said. “It could be cool to publish something of my own someday, but for me writing is just a hobby close to my heart.”

Feltovich will be joined at the Trinity reading by the four other students selected for this year’s Connecticut Student Poetry Circuit: Jonah Barton of Wesleyan University; Maisie Bilston of Yale University, daughter of Trinity Professor of English Sarah Bilston; Charlotte Ungar of the University of Connecticut; and Elliot Wilson of Quinnipiac University.

After the stop at Trinity, the circuit will continue to visit each poet’s home institution, with readings scheduled at Quinnipiac on February 27, Wesleyan on March 5, UConn on March 27, and Yale on April 24.