In a small room, people fill the chairs in the rows of desks around the room with a projector screen showing a slideshow of photographs and a wooden podium standing at the front of the room.
In the Distance Education Center Thursday, May 5, the Myriad creative arts journal, an El Camino journal that collects poems, short stories and other forms of art submitted by students teaches literary and editing poems and short stories, held a special reading.
The small room was filled almost to the brim with family members, faculty and students all attending the readings of various poets and story tellers. Colin Hyde, one of the Myriad editors, hosted the event and introduced the speakers to the podium.
Cristina Guizado, 20, nursing major, attended the Myriad reading because of her own personal passion for writing.
“I’m no good at writing, which is why I’m trying to be a nurse,” Guizado said. “But I have always loved reading and writing.”
The students of Myriad passed out booklets of the poems written from the various students, photographs, and even the short stories that were read out to the audience.
“Each book has a blank page near the back for anyone to write or draw in it,” Pete Marcoux, faculty advisor to Myriad, said. “It was originally thought of by the Myriad class.”
The purpose of the blank page is for anyone who feels inspired to write their own poem and can turn it in to the class or maybe even join it in the fall.
“The cover of the book has the photographs inside the words of the title,” Marcoux added.
Jaime Mondragon, 21, biology major, attended the reading because of his friend who didn’t read his poem but went in support of the other readers.
“I thought my friend was going to read today but having his poem in the book is cool enough too,” Mondragon said.
One of the readers, Sequoia Ruth, 22, major, read her poem “Hoarder” to the audience.
“Personally the title ‘Hoarder’ is about stacking fears, emotions, and memories and never really letting them go,” Ruth said. “That alone can build up inside a person’s mind and for me created a fear that someone would see all these insecurities and run for the hills.”
