LCS Freshies Concludes Semester with Literary Fest

The first-year students of the Literary and Cultural Studies with Creative Writing (LCS) held a literary festival on PE13C, alongside a continuation of PALABRA’s Pages and Threads Book Sale in the basement halls of the PE building last Thursday December 7, 2023.

In her opening remarks, Dawn Canada emphasized the value and power literature and the arts have, ending her remarks with a quote from Robin Williams in the film Dead Poets Society.

“Medicine, business, law, engineering… these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.”

Ana Delos Santos began the event as the first performer with her song “Catherine.” Delos Santos cited playing the video game of the same name as her main inspiration when writing her song.

Fidel Ferrol followed with his introspective poem ‘Where is this going?’ where he mused doubts of growing up and finding one’s place in the world.

Bruce Tumpalan through his poem Gamer Life mused about his feelings and thoughts of playing video games, and the anger, joy, and addiction that comes with it.

God of Arepo, a short story narrated by Kirstie Yap, started out as a collaborative writing exercise on Tumblr about a farmer named Arepo and his friendship with a god. Yap narrated three parts of the story by three different authors all while she was accompanied by a graphic novel adaptation being projected to her side.

Meagan Bullecer and Gabriel Dizon delighted the audience with their performance of a balitaw entitled Anugon-Anugon.

Mikaela Aloba’s Unstellar and Quiet Dreams followed by Maki Refugio’s Dear Purple Butterfly. Aloba cited her and her friends as the main thesis for both poems, with Unstellar being about how one is always unsatisfied at the end of the day no matter what one does and Quiet Dreams being an ode of gratitude towards her cherished friends. While Refugio’s Dear Purple Butterfly is a tearful poem dealing with her grief and how she’s handling the recent loss of her good friend Rhym.

Keanne Salas followed with his piece The Road Home, a charming story filled with tangents and diatribes ranging from Easter Island heads to Kangaroo child endangerment, but at the heart the tale was about Salas’ late dog Burpy.

A theatrical rendition of Wizard and I from the hit Broadway play Wicked was performed by emcee Adrian Roz as the finale.

Dr. Marisse Tan, PhD, their class adviser expressed gratitude and praise to her students for and once again asserted the value that literature has in our world in her closing remarks..

The Literary Festival of the freshmen of LCS beamed with talent and passion for the written and spoken word, and showcased their incredible gifts and their love for the medium evident in every moment of the event.

PHOTO GALLERY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Samuel Mendez II

Breathless from your sight and also my pneumonia.

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