EMCC alum wins state poetry award
An East Mississippi Community College alumnus has been awarded first place in the poetry category of the 2017 Mississippi Community College Creative Writing Association Workshop and Contest.
Teon Taylor, who graduated from the Golden Triangle Campus in December, won with his poem “”Black' Thoughts.” Taylor, a Columbus native, said he had been writing poetry seriously for around five years, and that he plans to study creative writing at the Mississippi University for Women.
Taylor said he wasn't expecting to win, because he didn't know that EMCC English Instructor Marilyn Ford had entered any of his work.
“I guess you could say that it was really kind of unexpected to just get an award for a state competition like that from a community college,” Taylor said.
Taylor's poem is based on the neighborhood he grew up in, and centers on how he perceives African-American mentality, with references to African-American stereotypes throughout.
Taylor said he enjoys writing poetry because of the freedom it gives him to play with words.
“You can almost use any word, whether it's from a dictionary, whether it's from another language, whether it's from a different culture, and it'll still apply to poetry” Taylor said. “That's what poetry is.”
Ford said Taylor's writing had developed a great deal during her time teaching him.
“Teon follows a fairly long line of successful writers we've had at EMCC,” Ford said.
Ford said in three out of the past five years, EMCC students had won the poetry category, as well as a second place in short fiction and a first place in drama.
“I hope we have established a precedent of a fairly strong creative writing class, creative writing program,” Ford said. “I encourage the students to respond well to each other, and they learn very quickly to try to help one another in workshopping. I give all the credit to them, because there a re a lot of days I feel as if they don't even need me.”
The EMCC literary magazine “Syzygy” took second place in the 2017 competition, as well.
“To be that one person from EMCC, a school I really like, to win out of all of these community colleges here, out of maybe hundreds of poems, it's kind of really exciting for me to win that,” Taylor said.