A week-long celebration of poetry and culture at Cuesta College’s North County Campus concluded recently with readings from students, faculty, staff, and a former poet laureate of San Luis Obispo.
“We’re all an artist in some way,” said academic counselor Gina Reyes-Patrick of the Cultural Diversity and Student Equity committee and coordinator of the poetry fest. “It’s an overall celebration of arts.”
The event began with an introduction from English instructor Sean Boling, facilitator. Then, poetry winners of this year’s Cuesta College creative writing contest offered the audience an early reading of the poetry they would be sharing at the contest’s awards ceremony two days later. Their work, along with winning entries from the short fiction and essay categories, were recently published in the school’s annual literary journal, “Tellus.”
Next, seven Cuesta College faculty and staff members read their work, ranging from serious to humorous and covering topics of social protest as well as personal experience.
“The teachers reading their poetry,” “Tellus” s winner Amber Hudson said, was her favorite part of the evening. She especially enjoyed English instructor Danny Fahy’s works, which treated serious issues like the decision to go to war with some light-hearted humor.
Others agreed that hearing original poetry read by instructors was a special treat. “Their passion and way of reading,” said student Taylor Judd, “was really nice to hear.” One of the reasons he attended the grand finale event was to see some of the faculty and staff in a different position and setting than he normally sees them.
Finally, the Poet Laureate of San Luis Obispo for the year 2001, Dr. Hernan Castellano-Giron, entertained the audience for an hour with several of his pieces written in Spanish, with English translations. Using hand motions, vocal variety, music, and even dancing at one point, he put on a performance that brought his poems to life. In most cases, he read the original Spanish versions of his work and then asked Boling to read the English translations for him.
“Poetry is a language that is total and complete,” said Castellano-Giron. Though he started writing romantic poetry as a teenager, he said his “real voice came with the exile” from his native country of Chile to Italy in 1973, upon the rise of Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship. Now his works include political and social considerations.
He encourages aspiring poets to “open their minds and eyes and senses to the whole experience of life, to the broad experience of life.”
With the title “Many Lives, Many Voices,” the poetry fest’s goal was to showcase the diversity that makes up that broad experience of life and culture celebrated in poetry. “It’s in the voice,” said Reyes-Patrick. “In that voice there is a story, and a lot of times those stories reflect a culture.”
“I think it was overall a great success for Cuesta College, and especially for the North County Campus,” said Reyes-Patrick. “We don’t have enough activities up here.”
With good reports coming from the week’s events, and especially from the ESL students’ readings, the school plans to make the poetry fest an annual event for the community.