Mass Communications instructor Wendy Carrera’s poem, Hiccups, was published in the popular latinola.com website on Aug. 22.

Impressively, Carrera’s poem was the first of her writings to ever be submitted. Like many other artists she is protective of her work and does not let simply any random stranger read it. She compares the confidentiality of her writings to that of a teenage girl and her journal.

Carrera was surprised to hear that her poem was going to be published. She thought of her writings as something that others would not be able to relate to simple because, “When you write something in some weird way it only matters to you. Its your personal work, you know.”

Little did she know that people would be emailing her with responses like, “I needed this”, “thank you”, or “inspiring”, letting her know that she is not misunderstood at all.

Carrera, who published the poem under the pen name of Gigi Pew, stated that her main aspiration for writing the poem came from the photo that sits alongside it. “The one thing that I must say inspired me to write this particular poem was the attached photo which symbolizes that beyond the chaos, beyond this chaotic world filled with triumphs and tribulations, we as humans share one common ground….love, strength, and unity. So we should always seize the moment…the good, the bad, and the ugly. We grow with every right and wrong turn we take. We all have hiccups and they eventually surpass…even when they return they go away. Everything that seems wrong at the moment is temporary.”

She also shares that many of her aspirations for writing the poem came from her family, and from her own experiences when dealing with problems of her own.

The website features a variety of sources of creativity created by the latino community, and they mainly focus on the Latino and Latina community of Los Angeles.