The room is filled with emotion as the contestants read their poems. People are cheering, clapping and crying. As the Poetry Festival was themed “Home” the contestants read their poetry with passion.
First place winner, Dental Assisting major Zienabelle Otero said her poetry was about childhood memories and the past.
“You interpret memories differently or how you have moments that you don’t know is a moment or you don’t know is worthy of even being a memory until you feel it or you recall it later on in your life and you’re just like wow that was something big,” Otero said. “That’s something that happen(ed) to me and nobody else. Nobody else has that except for you and the other person that it belongs to, so it’s yours. It’s hard to get that, put it together, and put it into a poem because you bring yourself back to that time that’s never going to be there again.”
English Professor Jana Fossum said the festival helps bring creativity through writing to the Citrus College community. The English Society encourages students across campus to use their creative voice, and invites students, faculty, staff and administrators to the event in the hopes that they encourage the Citrus College community to spend an afternoon together before the semester ends.
“The English Society inspires an appreciation for literature and provides an encouraging community that fosters an enthusiasm for the various forms of storytelling and a creative expression of the imagination.” Fossum said through an email.
Third place winner, Education major Emily Serna explains what her poem was about, “For a lot of people their home is happy, and what if it isn’t happy? So home for me it was like I have a happy home, but some people don’t have happy homes, and I just wanted to say this is what they see and this is what I see.”
The festival brought creativity to the table for the 93 students that volunteered to be in the contest such as Emily Serna. She said why poetry is important to her, “You can express your feeling with words even if someone doesn’t understand what your work is, I know what it means. It’s my feelings coming out to feel life.”
Fossum said that she thinks poetry is important for many students because people can get wrapped up in day to day activities and forget how important community and creativity is.
