On November 8, the 7th Sookmyungian Poetry Reading Festival was held at the Centennial Hall’s Samsung Convention Center on campus. The Sookmyungian Poetry Reading Festival is a traditional event that started in 2005, which is held every two years by the College of Liberal Arts. This festival was participated by 18 teams of students from 10 majors in the College of Liberal Arts and they showed off their talents by citing poems in diverse languages such as Korean, German, and Japanese.
This year’s Poetry Reading Festival kicked
off with the opening message from the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Lee
Chun-sil and congratulatory message from President Jungai Kang, followed by Professor
Choi Si-han from the Division of Korean Language & Literature reading his
own poem
As the screening criteria of the festival included memorization and expressive skills as well as audience response, the participating students grabbed the attention of the audience by not only reciting classic poems from diverse countries, but also by preparing props and costumes based on the poems’ themes and time setting. In addition, attendance by the Ambassadress of Azerbaijan to Korea Konul Teymurova attracted attention, who is teaching a Global Leadership and Networking course at our university this year in support of Ajija (Division of Korean Language & Literature), who is a student from Azerbaijan.
The festival also included fun events and
performances in addition to poetry reading. The first 100 audiences were given
iRings and other prizes such as iPad, Bluetooth speaker, book set from the
Munhakdongne Publishing Group, etc. were given to the students and faculty of
the College of Liberal Arts through drawing lots. In addition, the performance
by Heo Hui-su alumni, who is active as a dancer and choreographer, titled
After a fierce competition, the Grand Prize
of the 2017 Poetry Reading Festival went to the “Sirang” team, which included
Kwon Yeong-eun (Division of Education 2016) and Lee Ji-hyeon (Department of
Mathematics 2016) students. The “Sirang” team appealed to the senses and
emotions of the audience by citing the poem “Forgetful Mother” by Poet Choi
Don-seon and grabbed the attention of the audience with personally made props.
The Gold Prize went to the “Ballade of Sookmyung” that cited the
The members of the winning team “Sirang” expressed
their joy and said, “We think the efforts we put into preparing the props
contributed to our appeal,” and “It was a meaningful time as we learned more
about the poem ‘Forgetful Mother’ and focused on the poem’s meanings during the
process of preparing for our recitation.”