The Marquette Poetry Club hosted its third poetry slam of the semester on Nov. 30 in Heisenberg Hall, located on the third floor of Sensenbrenner Hall. The Poetry Club at Marquette invites writers and poetry enthusiasts to share more than their own writing.
The club meets once a week on Thursday nights and writers work on poems and are then given the chance to share what they have written. Members of the club are invited to share but are in no way obligated to share anything during meetings or slams, some enjoy coming to the slams to listen.
A majority of the writing shared during the slam followed a winter theme in honor of the beginning of the season. Some members brought homemade snacks and recited short stories, poems they’ve written, poems they appreciate and anecdotes. During some slams, the club will pick a poem to read by a more well-known poet.
During this slam Jacob Riyeff, professor of english and medievalist at Marquette University chose to recite a few stanzas from the classic Arthurian story, “Sir Gaiwan and the Green Night” in both modern and medieval English.
Some former members of the poetry club came as well, Nora Bravos the former president of the club recited her own poem inspired by her love of shoes and also read “Broken Vows” by Lady Gregory.
Matthew Manka, secretary of poetry club and sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences said that during the slams the club places a sign-up sheet up at the front of the room and attendees can sign up to read a poem they’ve written and workshopped throughout the month or a piece of writing they want to recite.
“I joined the club because I knew a couple people already in it and I figured it would be a good way to spend Thursday nights. I showed up to the meetings a few times and got along really well with the people here. There’s something about the environment here that I really enjoy, and environment where people felt comfortable sharing what they had made,” Manka said.
Elyse Smith, junior in the College of Arts & Sciences and member of the poetry club, said she is inspired by William Blake’s poetry and writing poetry herself is something she truly loves.
“I started by reading poetry, and I realized that I really loved it at first. It was a great way to express myself and also not having the pressure of my writing going anywhere that I didn’t want it to go. It’s really nice for keeping me grounded, being able to get all of my thoughts onto a sheet of paper,” Smith said.
The Poetry Club is looking to organize more slams next semester and welcome members and non-members to come and enjoy the reading of some original student poetry as well as writings by other authors.
This story was written by Sofía Cortés. She can be reached at [email protected].
