2024 OPA Spanish Contest – Winners
1st Place: Yuliana Kenfield (Gamarra Medrano),
“Lluvias Oregonianas”
2nd Place: Jesús Sepúlveda, “Pandemónium”
3rd Place: Arturo Sarmiento, “Escape”
Runners-up:
Germán Rizo, “La oscuridad como destino”
Efrain M. Diaz-Horna, “El buscador de sueños”
Sonia Priscila Ticas, “Ondulaciones”
Concepcion Samano, “Ciclo”
JUDGE
Dr. Isabel Jaén Portill
Dr. Isabel Jaén Portillo is Professor of Spanish at Portland State University, where she teaches literature, film, and cognition. She holds PhDs from Purdue University and the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. As a researcher and academic writer, she focuses on early modern literature and psychology, cognitive literary studies, contemporary literature and film, historical memory, women studies, migration, and transatlanticstudies. Her books include Cervantes and the Early Modern Mind (Routledge, 2021), Self, Other, and Context in Early Modern Spain (Juan de la Cuesta, 2017), Cognitive Approaches to Early Modern Spanish Literature (Oxford University Press, 2016), Cognitive Literary Studies (University of Texas Press, 2012), and Épocas y Avances (Yale University Press, 2006). Hispanic poetry is among the subjects that she teaches at PSU, focusing on classical and contemporary systems (from medieval structures to the sonnetto present-day manifestations such as audiovisual poems and slam poetry), cultural and historical contexts, and the cognitive aspects involved in the creation and reception of poetry.
She recently organized on campus a bilingual miniseries featuring Oregon Hispanic poets, open to the Portland and Oregon community (Spring 2024). As a poet and storyteller, she began her career in the 90s in Madrid (Spain) where she actively participated in the city’s main poetry gatherings, collaborated with visual artists, and was part of several storytelling and theater
groups. She was a student of Spanish poet Carlos Bousoño and has published poetry in Spain and the US. Her writing languages are Spanish (native tongue) and English.