51����.

All seasons call for poetry, but perhaps spring, with its magnificent pageant of colorful, bursting blooms, extended daylight and welcoming warmth brings out our most poetic instincts. 

It’s fitting that April is designated as National Poetry Month. Consider it a time to ponder, enjoy and reflect upon the odes, sonnets and Haikus that ignite our hearts, passions and imaginations. 

51���� has many reasons to celebrate the month; from students to alumni to professors and staff, the community is rich with poets, as well as writers, artists and other creatives.

And some of those creatives are feeling especially celebratory these days. The North Carolina College Media Association recently awarded 51����’s Hobart Park with a 2023 Best of Show recognition for literary magazines.

It’s the second year in a row Hobart Park has received the award in the category, which includes entries from the state’s public and independent colleges of all sizes.

“One of the even greater accomplishments about this award is that Hobart Park is completely student-run; the editors and contributors have earned every bit of the accolade themselves,” said Alan Michael Parker, the Douglas C. Houchens Professor of English. “The editors spend months soliciting, reviewing, and selecting work and then putting together the issue and launching Hobart Park into the world.”

The media association began the contests in 2009. The 2023 co-editors-in-chief, Miguel Donado ’23 and Ephi Light ’25, each began working for the magazine as first-year students. When they first learned about the award last year, they figured they had nothing to lose by entering Hobart Park.

“We’d made it one of our goals to try for higher visibility,” Donado said. “When we found out we got the award last year, we were super-excited. Then to win it again was the cherry on top.”

Donado and Light describe Hobart Park as not just a magazine, but a vibrant, diverse community where students majoring in English, art, science, religion, philosophy, economics and other disciplines merge their creative talents. 

Donado, for example, was a computer science major with a minor in art. He’s now working in web design and development at Georgetown University. Light, an English major and Belk Scholar, plans to pursue a writing and academic career.

Last year they hosted a launch party after the magazine went to print, and they plan to do the same this year. As these things go, Light and the magazine’s current staff are busy in final production stages. Despite the stress of deadlines, rewards abound.

“When you’re putting the magazine together, you find yourself looking at this incredible art and wide variety of work from people who come from around the world and have so many different perspectives and interests,” Light said. “Sometimes I pester them to write and create more because I love their work so much.

“And I think, ‘wow, I’m surrounded by some really talented people.’”