Miami Dade College’s Hialeah campus faculty hosted an open mic poetry reading event on February 8, 2010 for Black History Month. The event brought out about 25 students, Student Life’s very own Nelson Magana, campus president Norma M. Goonen and several professors including Victor Calderin. One by one, each student or faculty member came up to the lectern to speak to us about a poem that spoke to them. Some recited classic poems like Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’ while others showed off original works. Most of the poems were short but in this case, quantity did not necessarily equal quality. Whether short or long, published or original, well-known or unfamiliar, each poem carried with it a sense of power and emotion that its reader helped to solidify. Although many of the students seemed to be underclassmen, their demeanor and shy extroversion helped to make the event what it was. It was real, unstructured and open. It seemed to elicit a “Come as you are” type of feeling. And students did just that. They poured their hearts out for the world (or in this case, a group of peers) to hear. And what resulted was raw human emotion shown off to the core. This was one of the first events, if not the first, that Hialeah campus organizers have had for Black History Month this year. More events are scheduled at this campus, as well as the seven others, throughout the month of February. More information is available at
http://www.mdc.edu. By Danny Carratala
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