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Hernando Today

Calling Poets Who Know It

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By TONY MARRERO

Hernando Today

Published: November 25, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - Francisco Ojeda took a stab at haiku and landed in the water.

The 19-year-old Brooksville resident wrote the three-line poem for an assignment in his English Composition class at Pasco-Hernando Community College's North Campus, in Brooksville.

Titled "Waterplay," it goes like this: "The thunderous wave/happily escaping/silence once again."

Beautiful, came the verdict from Professor Kay McKamy after reading the haiku aloud in class Monday.

But when asked if he intended to share the piece or any other poetry at the college's upcoming Celebration of Poetry, Ojeda smiled in a way that said the idea is just on this side of absurd.

"I'm thinking about it," he said.

The poetry celebration, slated for 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 5, in Room A139 on the North Campus, is partly about drawing out reluctant poets from the college's student body and from the community, said Richard Downing, a PHCC professor, a published poet and a co-organizer of the symposium.

The semi-annual event is open to the community and anyone can share his or her poetry by signing up in advance.

In his classes, Downing says, he stresses to students that poetry is more than greeting card fluff or insufferable sonnets.

"I try to get across that anything that happens to anyone is fair game for a poem," Downing said. "Anything we can be, they can be."

The north campus had some occasional poetry symposiums in the early 1990s, said McKamy, who organized those initial events.

McKamy and Downing started the annual celebration, held every April around William Shakespeare's birthday, about eight years ago. The fall edition started three years ago.

The goal was to provide an academic student activity, McKamy said, but added, "We just wanted to have fun with poetry."

The event always enjoys a good turnout and shows that poets can turn up in surprising places. Among the participants is Cyril Hollister, a PHCC maintenance worker who has earned the college's informal title of poet laureate.

The celebration is meant to be family-friendly, and students are asked to keep their material. There is no prescreening or censorship, Downing warns.

There is typically a good turnout, even without counting the students who show up for a few extra credit points in McKamy's composition class.

Many hesitant students sign up at the last minute, read and feel liberated. They get over that initial fright of, as Downing puts it, "standing in front of a crowd saying, 'These are my thoughts, this is what I wrote, judge me.' "

But when they do, McKamy said, "They really have something to say."

On Monday, McKamy's class discussed Robert Frost's "Out, Out -," a poem about a boy who dies after losing his hand to a buzz saw.

The poem's title alludes to lines spoken by Shakespeare's Macbeth when he learns of his wife's suicide: "Out, out, brief candle!"

Comparing life to a candle that can be extinguished at any time is a heady lesson for college students seemingly with their whole lives ahead of them.

"We live, we flare up for a short amount of time and then we're snuffed out," McKamy told the class. "Sad, but true."

Later, McKamy reminded the class that "Carpe Diem," Latin for "seize the day," is among the vocabulary words on an upcoming exam.

So did Monday's lesson help convince Shivon Mozaffar, another student in McKamy's class whose haiku the professor thought was worth reading aloud, to read her work next week?

Mozaffar smiled and gave a half-shrug: "I'm definitely considering it."

If you go

WHAT: Celebration of Poetry, a semi-annual open mike poetry night open to the community and hosted by Pasco-Hernando Community College.

WHEN: From 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 5

WHERE: PHCC's North Campus, 11415 Ponce de Leon Blvd.

ADMISSION: Free, but those who wish to read should call to sign up. Those who don't sign up will be invited to read if time permits.

CONTACT: To find out more or to sign up call Richard Downing, 797-5132, or Kay McKamy, 797-5109.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandtoday.com.

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