Threads’ 2019 edition continues to weave voices on campus

By: Angela Scipione

News Editor

“Everybody has a story and it’s nice to be able to share it,” Jessica Brouker, English, foreign language and ESL professor, said.

A reading of Threads was presented on Tuesday, April 11 in the Bulmer Telecommunications Center.

According to Dr. Maria Palmara, English, foreign languages and English as a second language department chairperson, Threads is the English department’s literary journal that celebrates student writing and artwork. Each author included in the collective publication was called up to read their piece during the ceremony.

Before the readings were conducted, Palmara presented the 2019 Threads Magazine Awards. Four writing award winners and one art award winner were announced.

“Threads awards are given to students who submitted and were selected as among the best in the 2019 issue,” Palmara said. “All awards come with a certificate and a cash prize.”

Malik Johnson, honors business major and author of “Noire Documentary,” was one receiver of the Threads Writing Award.

“I don’t consider myself a writer, but I know I’ve always been good at it,” Johnson said. “It just feels natural to me, something I don’t really have to try that hard to do.”

Johnson found out about Threads through a professor who suggested he submit a writing piece.

“I didn’t think I was even gonna win or be published, and then I actually won a writing award for it,” Johnson said. “It’s funny, it was just an extra credit assignment that I did, so I didn’t really think it was that good, but she saw something in it so I just trusted her,” he said. “I feel honored.”

Johnson believes Threads exemplifies the passion Hudson Valley Community College holds for its students.

“I think it shows students that what you write at Hudson Valley [Community College] isn’t just a grade; it’s not just something you have to submit for points,” Johnson said. “It’s something that [the college] feels is important because it’s important to us,” he said. “It shows that they do care about what we do besides just grading us.”

Additionally, Johnson saw Threads as a way to bring together the community and its voices. Threads is all about sharing perspectives, and he believes students could read his piece and see themselves in it.

Matthew Sheldon, business major and author of “Free as a Bird,” agreed.

According to Sheldon, his poem is about wanting help and an answer to everything going on inside himself. He wants others to know they are not alone.

“There’s the symbolism of the bird flying free: The people around me living free lives, and they weren’t boggled down by mental illness,” Sheldon said. “They could just go to school and learn, whereas I had to go to school and try to force suicidal thoughts out of my head.”

Sheldon said when he wrote the poem, he was in a very dark place in his life.

“I hope that my poem can connect with people on campus,” he said. “I hope that they won’t have to feel alone.”

Many of the students who submitted work used creativity as an outlet for their thoughts and feelings.

Psychology major and author of “i, a jewess,” Sophinnian Rich, writes and draws from events happening around her.

“If I write, it’s usually because something has happened and it’s an emotional outlet for me,” Rich said. “My poem, “i, a jewess,” comes from fear of persecution that’s been handed down in my family,” she said. “As a Jew, that is something that we face and we have this history of constantly running from someone who wants to kill us.”

Rich explained how the details in her poem, such as using a rhyming scheme, were intentional.

“I wrote with a rhyming scheme because I felt so vulnerable and scared like a child, that I needed some sort of structure to hold on to,” she said. “So even how I wrote the poem was an expression of how terrified I was.”

But for communications student, Joanna Pennings, writing is simply for fun. She said her published literary pieces were written just for the joy of writing and sometimes there doesn’t have to be a life altering moment behind a piece of work.

“I would love to, at least part of my life, be an author,” Pennings said. “I think the publishing of Threads itself is helpful because it’s validating to what you’re doing.”

Pennings also liked how the event itself forced writers out of their comfort zones.

“A lot of writers don’t tend to speak out as much, so I think it forces people to actually go out and do something about what they write and not just submit it and hide behind it,” she said. “You get to have a platform where you feel like you’re allowed to share something about yourself.”

Many of the writers, when called up to read their piece, were nervous to speak in front of the crowd. Especially because many of the pieces were personal to themselves.

“I’m more nervous about speaking than anything,” Rich said. “The prospect of having to get up in front of people and then share it is a lot more terrifying to me than actually submitting anything.”

However, she understands that reading her piece was worth the worry.

“I write a lot of things that no one ever sees but me, so knowing that something I’ve written may have helped someone in some way is really important to me,” she said. “I feel a lot of very visceral emotions when I read this poem that I wrote and I wanted that to get through to other people.”

Chelsea Conger, mortuary science major and author of “The Desert,” was also happy to read her piece to the audience.

“My piece was about my personal experience with addiction,” Conger said. “The message [was] that we should help people who are struggling even though they don’t help themselves and that we should give to people even when they don’t deserve to be given to.”  

She explained that she does not feel shame about her addiction, though it’s not something she openly shares, which made reading her story all the more powerful for herself.

“It was cathartic,” Conger said. “It’s kind of nice to go out there as somebody who doesn’t feel that shame and show people that [their] viewpoint of addiction is maybe incorrect, and because I was so passionate about my piece, I was less nervous because I really felt my message,” she said. “I even have my own aspirations of maybe trying to publish personal stories, so it’s kind of a step in the right direction.”

Sheldon expressed a similar feeling of having more confidence after being published in Threads.

“I feel Threads is a great stepping stone,” he said. “I’ve never been officially published in any form, so to have a piece that I created thrown out there for the world to see in a physical copy, that’s the next step that I’ve never been able to achieve.”

According to Sheldon, being published has given him the courage to try and publish other works.

“I have entire albums of sheet music and lyrics written in notebooks at home that have never seen the light of day, because I’ve always lacked the willpower to try to make them into audio,” Sheldon said. “But I feel that this could be the step towards getting something recorded,” he said. “I feel Threads can help people achieve something, at least be the first step to achieving more.”

One thing Sheldon said could be improved for Threads was advertising.

“I feel it should be better publicized,” he said. “I wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t for my English professors saying ‘hey you should give this a try.’”

As stated by Paul Charbel, English, Foreign Language and ESL professor, one of the main ways Threads is advertised is through the bookstore.

“Let’s say you’re getting your books for English class for the first time, we include Threads in the prepack of the ‘Bedford Handbook,’” Charbel said.

Additionally, some professors use Threads for coursework. Some professors even bring their class to the reading event or give extra credit to those who attend, Charbel said.

Harold Scott, communications major and a winner of the Threads Writing Award, wrote his poem in response to a piece in a previous Threads publication.

“The inspiration to write came from a class assignment requiring us to read someone else’s work and then try to write our own poem with a similar style, but not at all based on the same content,” Scott said. “My poem, “Fear: After “Tamed” by Kyle Pergolino,” was about an experience one evening while I was serving in Iraq in 2005.”

“It felt great to win the award, quite an honor to me, actually,” he said. “I really never knew just what I could accomplish academically until I was challenged to do so here at Hudson Valley [Community College].”

All members of the Threads committee encourage students to submit their writing, drawings, paintings and photography to Threads.

“It’s the hardest hurdle to jump, the fear of someone else reading your work and saying it’s not worthy,” Charbel said. “I understand that fear all too well, and I want you to know that everybody feels that fear,” he said. “The difference is will you put yourself out there? I say take the step, submit it. It’s always worth a shot.”