Amanda Leahy ’11 sat by herself at the back of the Murray Function Room in Yawkey Center, wearing a gray summer dress on an unexpectedly wet, cold April day. Holding a hot cup of coffee with both hands, she scanned a single page that rested in her lap, moving her lips as she silently rehearsed lines of a poem she would read at that day’s 2011 Greater Boston Intercollegiate Poetry Festival.

An English major from Lowell, Massachusetts, Leahy was Boston College’s 2011 “entry” at the annual festival, a celebration of undergraduate creativity at 20 local colleges that drew an audience of 300 this year. English professor and festival coordinator Suzanne Matson had chosen her from among students in an advanced poetry writing class. She had never read her poetry to any public wider than the literary workshops in which she had participated.

“I’m excited. I’m a little nervous,” Leahy acknowledged. Then Matson approached, took her student by the hand, and led her to the center aisle of Murray to meet the evening’s special guest, poet Brian Turner.

A serious man with short hair and a thick frame, the 43-year-old Turner earned his MFA from the University of Oregon. In 1999 he began a seven-year career with the U.S. Army, including one year as an infantry team leader in Iraq, where he wrote poems and carried a favorite, “Here, Bullet,” in a Ziploc bag in his left chest pocket. It became the title poem in his 2005 debut collection, a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection that year.

“Just take a deep breath. It’s no big deal,” Turner told the younger poet, adding, “The hardest part is over.” That is, she’d written the poem.

The poetry festival, which dates to the late 1980s, rotated among Boston-area campuses, took a hiatus, then found a permanent home in 2006 in Chestnut Hill, where it is sponsored by Boston College Magazine and Poetry Days, the English department’s annual celebration of the art form. Turner’s visit was supported in part by the Institute for the Liberal Arts.

During the student readings, Turner sat in the front row, his arms folded, a look of steady interest and intensity on his face. He talked with students and guests for almost an hour afterward about their work and ideas. Turner said he has been invited to read his work at many universities recently, but “seldom in such a relaxing environment” where he could spend time with students and faculty. He had done that earlier in the day at Hovey House, where he took part in a question-and-answer session with approximately 30 students and faculty members.

Taking her turn at the podium that evening, Leahy read “Variations of a Theme By” (“When I think of Wordsworth, it is: /—Are you heading west? And / Was it for this?”), without missing a beat. She drew whistles and applause from a crowd that included friends, relatives, and scores of fellow poets.

—From Boston College’s 2011 Annual Report