Thursday, March 2nd, the University of Arkansas– Fort Smith’s world languages department hosted their biannual “Declamations of Poetry” event where students performed poetry declamations from a variety of Spanish speaking poets.
Evan McClellan, the declared winner of the event, performed a lively rendition of “El León y la ratón” by Félix María Samaniego. 23-year-old McClellan is a Spanish major at UAFS and has been a Spanish speaker since 2017.
“El León y la ratón” tells the story of a lion and a mouse who save each other’s lives, a favorite from McClellan’s childhood. He explains that he had always adored the story in English from Aesop's Fables, and after finding out it was originally written in Spanish, he knew that he must perform it for the event.
McClellan placed the audience directly into “El León y la ratón”-- his vivid characterization of the mouse and lion was enough to captivate the room and the fluidity of his Spanish assured his spot as winner.
All students who participated were recognized with a gift from the language department at the end of the night. 21-year-old, Madeline Brennan, performed “La jaula” by Alejandra Pizarnik and stated that the poetry declamation “challenged her to improve her pronunciations”, a challenge that took her Spanish speaking to the next level.
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