Student and poet Emily Wadlinger summed up a feeling that many people have when it comes to poetry: “I feel like I can only write when I’m in pain,” she said while prefacing one of her poems – but then, she followed it with the fact that she wanted to stop focusing on pain as the driving source of her poetry and focus on broadening the scope of her inspirations.
Inspiration lives in many places, peeping from behind happiness and seeping out of anger, tearing itself out of suffering and heartbreak and perching upon humor. In all its forms, it was present on Wednesday the 18th when Poets & Writers, along with an assembly of onlookers and supporters, gathered at Live Free and Dine to deliver and lend an ear to a host of inspired writers. Poetry was read ranging across a vast expanse of emotions and inspirations, from love to war (and both), from heartbreak and suffering to art and the irritations of life.
What else can we expect to see from Poets & Writers? Aside from their Friendship Revolution, an event held for suicide awareness in memory of English major Jake Nawn who passed away in 2015, they are holding writing workshops and having their annual re-lease party later in the school year.
If you are like so many of us and want to share your voice but are inclined to hesitate to speak publicly, Emily Holleran, vice president of Students and Writers, has some advice: attending the Poets & Writers sessions and Open Mic Nights helped her find her voice, and she encourages even just attending and absorbing the wisdom our peers have to share with us.
Jess Chretien, another student poet and performer on Wednesday night, spoke in a poem about reading “somewhere on the internet that imagination is just a synonym for hope.” If imagination is hope, then hope was certainly shared at Live Free and Dine. Every member of the audience was respectful, every performer respected, and each contribution was meaningful, filled with emotion and effort, and met with appreciation.