Last Saturday night, a memorial service and celebration of the life of Oberlin student Emma Howell (1981-2001) was held at Fairchild Chapel. Following the service friends and family walked to the Cat in the Cream in a candlelight procession for a sharing of music, dancing, and memories. Faculty and students organized the event.
Howell, a member of the class of 2003, died in a swimming accident in June, just before returning home from a semester of study at Federal University in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. In Brazil, she had been studying print making, photography, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as African and belly dance. Emma loved to dance and had begun her study of belly dance in an ExCo class. She had also studied African dance with professor Adinike Sharpley and taken contact at Oberlin. She was a double major in creative writing and comparative literature. Howell also took classes in the African American studies department, finding an important connection between learning African dances and studying African American culture.
Earlier in the day tribute was paid to Howell through a poetry reading where friends, classmates, professors and family members read several of Howell’s works.
A skilled and mature poet, Howell had published several works in literary magazines before even coming to Oberlin. In speaking of Howell, friends and teachers identify her a poet of great passion who related to the world through words.
“It was beautiful to have her poetry live that way: that is the thing about poetry, you can trace thoughts through it. As opposed to people who don’t write, she left behind parts of herself, ” Howell’s close friend, junior Rachael Sarto said.
At Saturday’s gathering CreativeWriting professor Martha Collins spoke about Howell’s ineffable sense of knowing, even before it was quite clear to her, that something would become a poem. Collins and others hope that more of her poems may be published in the future.

A poetry prize recognizing Oberlin students has been established in Howell’s Honor. Donations for the fund will be accepted in a box outside the Creative Writing Office or can be delivered to the Development Office in Bosworth 102. Checks should be made out to Oberlin College with a note indicating that the contribution is for the Emma Howell Poetry Prize Fund.