Faculty of Languages and Arts’ (FBS) student, Anisa Rahayu got the first place on poetry reading contest held in HAMKA 1 Senior High School, Bekasi as known as SMANSASI. The contest is an annual event managed by Kansas (Literature Writing Community). Anisa read Nirwanto’s “Perenang Buta” poetry. The poetry was published on poetry anthology with the title Jantung Lebah Ratu in Gramedia Pustaka Utama (GPU) 2008.

The poetry was drawn poetry. It makes all of the participations including Anisa should be ready to read all the poetry provided by the committee. There was no elimination session on the contest. Each of the participants only performed once. Anisa joined the contest in the category of general category which the participants were college and high school students.

Not only poetry reading contest, but HAMKA SMANSASI was also held a general category competition such as poetry writing, essay writing, and short story writing competition. While the competition for senior high school only was speech and poetry musicalization competition. “It’s cool that senior high school students are already able to hold various talent-based competition which opens for a public,” Anisa said.

Hamka SMANSASI was not only held a contest, but also a workshop which was attended by the competitions’ participant and common people. Tere Liye, Wulanfanda and Amien Kamiel attended the workshop. In the workshop, Anisa said that she was impressed by the contest “It’s amazing because they can present inspiring and talented people in the workshop”.

S hopes, in the next chance, she could join a similar contest both inside or outside UNY as an effort to develop her talent in reading poetry. (Nursaid, Tj. Lalak)