During spring 2020, I had elected to take Spanish 597EC – Escritura Creativa. It was a graduate level course and I had been itching to take a higher level class. If I recall correctly, it was one of the only Spanish courses that interested me at that level. However, as a junior, I seriously doubted my ability to take a higher level Spanish course. I emailed the professor, Márgara, about whether or not she thinks I would be able to take the course. Her honesty and kindness ultimately led me to pick up the class.

The class focused on poetry as a form of creative writing. Every week, we would write poems and share them in class. The class was very tight-knit with only 5 of us plus Márgara. The class pushed me to think outside of the box with regards to Spanish expression. The exchange of poetry and feedback ultimately made me a better poet.

The pandemic (even as I write this) has upended regular life and it dates back to March of 2020. About two to three weeks into the semester, we had transitioned to Zoom and the rest of the semester was online. In one of our regular classes online, we were about to present our assigned work when Márgara changed gears on us. She asked us whether we wanted to take some time to write a piece in the moment about how we were feeling. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, everyone had written something about what was on their minds. These pandemic-oriented poems presented different variations of the same worry and unease we all possessed. I mainly recall this class because it was maybe the one poem that I was most proud of. I will write the poem at the end.

If Margara offers this class in the future at the graduate or undergraduate level, I highly recommend you take it, so you can expand your Spanish beyond the highly analytic classes you might take within the department.