Literary Contest Ceremony

The past Wednesday, April 22, the English Department held the 48th Annual Literary Contest Ceremony. In this ceremony, the department presented the awards of students that participated in three different categories: poetry, essay and short story. Not only that, but this activity was also dedicated to the memory of Professor Mark Wekander.

For this contest, in my Journey in Literature class, my professor assigned everyone to submit an entry in whichever category we chose. To be completely honest, at first I thought that for it to be mandatory, it took away the appeal of it, because I didn't want to feel obligated to submit something that a panel of judges is going to critic and later on choose what they believed to be the best of them all. But, when I sat down to actually do it, it was fun! Truly, I knew I wasn't going to win, but it was a good and different experience to be writing for this type of contest.

In the ceremony, a professor greeted us all and introduced our host for the activity. Unfortunately I don't remember his name, but he was a true performer! He kept the activity alive and cheerful by almost acting and animating the things that he said. First off, he gave the prizes in the category of essays, and two of the girls from my class won! Marilú Crespo won first place and Ana Perez won third place, so congrats to them on their win! Plus, because she won first place, Marilú got to read her essay titled "Do Witches Get Financial Aid?" and it was great, just by the title we know that!

Professor Mark Wekander

After that, the professor that spoke at the beginning came back to the microphone to talk about Mark Wekander and some of his poems. Out of all the poems, the one that I liked the most was titled Lista. Lista is a poem about his neighbors' cat that died. One of the recurring themes in his poems revolves around the animals in our lives, and that is shown in this poem. It was evident to me that Mark was an astounding writer, and a very missed friend.

After this, the prizes in the category of poems were given. I didn't know any of the winners, but the girl that won first place read her poem and it was truly astounding! It was about how a writer is like a god and his poems are like his children. It was very intriguing and truly deserved that first place. Afterwards, the prizes for the short stories were given, but unfortunately, the girl that won didn't bring what she wrote, so we couldn't listen to her story. It was kind of disappointing, because it would've been great to hear it.

At the end of it all, the presenter bid us goodbye, but before we left, we were surprised with a salsa dance for the closing. It was really fun and the two students that danced were really great at what they were doing! Overall, I was afraid that the ceremony would be a little dull, but it was the complete opposite! It was very interesting, informing and entertaining, plus, it reminded us of the great people that have left us in this world, but his written work will never be ceased. It was an astounding activity that I will happily be attending next year.