On Wednesday, December 5, 2012, at 6p.m. the Teleconference room will be holding the 5th Semi Annual Poetry Event.

“The Library Club sponsors the event every semester,” Cerritos College Faculty Librarian, Monica Lopez mentioned.

It all started five semesters ago with the idea from the Library Club who came up with this idea.

“They wanted to do something like this so students can come and read their own original poetry.” Lopez explains

With this opportunity the club decided to make it into a contest.

The entrance is $3 at the door or $2 with a non- perishable canned food.

“All the proceeds goes to the food bank on campus that the Health Center, Ms. Montgomery puts that together and we give her whatever money we make from the ticket sales so she can buy food for her food bank. We just started doing that last semester.” Lopez says.

Before that money was used for scholarships, for the club, or trips that the club wanted to take.

The Library Club wanted to do this (poetry event) for the sake of students who’d written their own original poetry.

This was a nice event to do that for these students.

Lopez, explains how the event gets started.

“The first half of the event is judged. So there’s judges that’s usually faculty members. If not staff that are not students. Then the second half is the open event that people can go up there and just start reading whatever they have. That doesn’t have to be original.”

Students can participate by emailing the Library Club where students can send their poem. It has to include the title of the poem and an actual copy of the poem, so the judges can see it.

The last day to submit your poem is December 3, 2012 in the evening.

There are nice group of students that show up to the event.

Paula Pereira, a new librarian this semester shares her thoughts about the Poetry Event.

“I believe students will have the chance to share their own poetry with others because, many times we have many people who write beautiful poetry but they hide it inside the cupboard.” Pereira explains.

Pereira continues, “It’s inside their notebook but they never have a chance to voice what they wrote about and this gives them an excellent opportunity to share with other students what they have written.”

The poem that wins 1st prize will have their poem shared on the 2013 Library Newsletter.