WNMU J. Cloyd Miller Library hosted a celebration of National Poetry Month on April 12. The event was planned in collaboration with the Humanities Department, with support from the Southwest Word Fiesta.
The event opened with welcoming remarks by librarian Arminda Sandoval, followed by an introduction to the importance of poetry by WNMU Writer in Residence, JJ Amaworo Wilson. After this introduction, Assistant Professor Heather Frankland introduced Grant County Poet Laureate Allison Waterman, who joined the event by video to read from her work. A number of WNMU students also read from their poetry, including students in Frankland’s English 099 class, who also read work by published poets that they admire. Also sharing their work were poet and Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs Jack Crocker and the Silver City River Poets, Elise Stuart, a former Grant County Poet Laureate, and Leonore Hildebrandt. Toward the end of the event, Frankland gave a tribute to the late El Paso poet and Library Director Gilda Baeza-Ortego’s friend, Donna Snyder.
The winners of the WNMU Humanities Department Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest—Devin Larsen and Bella Drissell for poetry, and Elizabeth Villegas and Bella Norero for prose—were announced by English Professor and Dean of Arts and Sciences, Kate Oubre, and they also read from their work at the event.
Larsen, the first-place winner in poetry, is a Kinesiology major who is graduating in May and is originally from Queen Creek, AZ. His poem, “To Find My Great Perhaps,” celebrates the adventure of living in nature.
Drissell, an Art major who now lives in Silver City, comes to New Mexico from Iowa. Her second-place poem, “1/6/2021,” addresses the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 and was originally drafted the day of the event. Drissell describes the poem as “a kind of stream of consciousness piece to unpack some of the emotions I was feeling that day.”
In the prose category, the first-prize short story is “Eli and Oli” by Villegas. She describes her story as a futuristic work that explores “how electronic devices constantly remind us of what we must do.” She is a nursing major who currently resides in Deming and is originally from Puerto Palomas, Mexico.
Norero is a native of Silver City and a dual-enrollment student who is graduating from Cobre High School this spring as well as earning her associate’s degree from WNMU. Her second-place non-fiction work, “Narrative and the Context of Cooney,” explores her family’s relationship to the Cooney area in the Gila National Forest, a place that is rich in her family history, Norero said.
Frankland described the reading as a kind of “soundscape of our students” that allowed the audience to understand “what people are going through and how they are perceiving the reality of their world. I want to hear that directly from [students], so they can enjoy using their voice.” The event, she said, was equally important for the students and the audience. “We need more celebration [of creative writing] so they can see we are so proud of their accomplishments,” said Frankland about why it is significant to announce the contest winners at the celebration of National Poetry Month. Added Frankland, “It is important that we show the community the local talent that we have here.”
All of the prize-winning work will be excerpted on the English Department webpage and will be included in full in the upcoming edition of “The Maverick,” the student-run, student-written journal that is scheduled to be published in May by Mimbres Press.
Caption: The winners of the Creative Writing Award pose with Dean of Arts and Sciences Kate Oubre following the National Poetry Month Celebration. First row (L-R): Elizabeth Villegas, Bella Norero, Oubre, Bella Drissell. Second row: Devin Larsen.