On Thursday, April 10 several students and I had the opportunity to present works of poetry that we wrote over this past semester in Creative Writing: Poetry, a course taught by Scott Moncrieff, professor of English. The poetry reading, which was held at the James White Library (JWL), came as a collaborative effort between Moncrieff and Margaret Adeogun, head of Patron Services at the JWL, when the two realized that the library’s plans for National Poetry Month coincided with the class poetry reading for the same day. According to Moncrieff, the two “talked … and decided it was a good idea to join forces.”
In addition to myself and my five classmates, two other writers, Stefania Laime and Chris Mwashinga, read their works. I was able to speak with a few students about their experience with the poetry reading.
This was the first time many in the class had read their poetry outside of a classroom setting. Nate Miller (sophomore, English, French, music) called the experience “intimidating” but expressed that he found the new experience an interesting departure from the way he has shared his writing in the past.
“I don't often get the chance to share the things I write with other people, and I think what's really interesting about situations like poetry readings is you have everyone’s attention which is really unlike any other writerly situation,” he said. “It was a really interesting chance to to present my art to people and to know that they were interacting with it.”
Likewise, Amelia Stefanescu (senior, English), shared that although she had read poetry at church in her childhood, she hadn’t had the chance to read her own works in front of an audience. She called the experience “very exciting” and said she “enjoyed the opportunity to be able to share [her] own poetry with an audience.”
However, some students had participated in poetry readings before, such as Sarah Burton, a community member and faculty spouse who works as a freelance copy editor. Burton shared that although she had taken part in an Andrews University Department of English poetry reading before, she had never previously taken a formal poetry class. She felt that this class helped her poems and writing become “more improved” and “more sophisticated.” In addition to the improvements she felt she had garnered from the class, she also enjoyed the chance to read her poetry in front of an audience, saying, “There is something about sharing your poetry with other people in a public setting that is very intimate and special.”
Burton’s two children, ages 5 and 7, were able to attend the poetry reading and hear her read her poems. Even though she believed much of it was “over their heads,” Burton said it was “a privilege to be able to introduce them to this aspect of the world of words.”
Indeed, after the hard work and creative labor that we put in over the course of the semester, being able to share the work we had created was extremely rewarding. Each of us read poems that sprung from various assignments and covered a range of topics. Stefanescu, who has an interest in Greek mythology, read several poems inspired by women from Greek myths. She began with a reading of her poem “Aiaia,” named after the island prison of the witch Circe from Homer’s “The Odyssey,” and also read a poem by A.E. Stallings entitled “Persephone Writes a Letter to Her Mother.”
Stefanescu said these poems are important to her because they focus on “discussing the confinements of the goddess Persephone and the witch Circe. Both of these women are trapped in places they cannot escape from and long to leave and regain their freedom.”
Thematically, “Pomegranate,” the second poem of her own that she read, is “tightly related to Persephone” through the invoking of the pomegranate, the fruit “that has the symbolism of effectively trapping her in the Underworld. The poem itself explores the opening of a pomegranate, comparing it to a person being roughly opened and, in the process, being broken. It represents the loss of freedom and the longing to be loved gently and without having to sacrifice parts of yourself.”
Miller also read poems inspired by religious themes, starting with his poem “Dogs,” which tells the story of the death of Jezebel. He shared that his poem was focused on “reclaiming dignity in her death because it was a pretty violent death. She died a very dehumanizing death, and it's saying, you know, she deserved hallowed ground.”
Continuing the theme of poems named after animals, Miller then read “roaches,” a poem that he wrote “when one of [his] friends was moving into a dorm that [he] had heard had roaches in it. It turns out it didn't, but it was a fun thought.” In addition to poems of his own, he also read “[The patriarch of Jesus Camp is dead]” by Diane Seuss, a poem, he said, that “is a really thoughtful meditation, on death, on collective mourning, and, really questions, I think in a nicely absurd, nicely comic tone, what happens in the afterlife—the point of it all.”
Burton, in addition to “Swan” by Mary Oliver, read two of her own poems, “Tide” and “Taste.” Both poems focused heavily on memory and the sensory experiences associated with them. “Tide” was inspired by “a recent, rather frightening, experience snorkeling in Cancun,” where she “had to fight the current to get back to shore,” while “Taste” focused more on the “ways in which certain foods bring back latent memories,” exploring the ways that certain tastes are associated with different parts of our lives and can bring back those memories for us when we least expect them.
The poetry reading was an afternoon of art and expression that was not only exciting to take part in, but rewarding to be able to attend. Although sharing one’s poetry can be intimidating and scary at times, opportunities like this give students the opportunity to grow both as poets and people and to engage in the artistic life of our campus community.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.