“You seemed like something poured, not driven,” read professional tutor Douglas Smith.
The line comes from Stanley Kunitz’s “The Wellfleet Whale,” a poem Smith read against a background of student photographs depicting hands scrunching a belly and power lines.
This was the scene on Nov. 17, when more than 50 people gathered in the Founders hall Gallery to witness “To Praise This World: The Art of Reading.” Lights dimmed at the event, and both faculty and student readers took turns behind the podium.
The event followed an open call for people to read their favorite poems, and the readers chose an array of selections. They ranged from Kunitz and e.e. cummings to more recent poets like Mark Doty and Rainer Maria Rilke.
But the size of the spectrum did not decrease the poems’ power or beauty, as was demonstrated by the poems chosen by two professors. Associate Foreign Language Professors Dave Limburg and Sylvia Trelles read poems in their respective languages, German and Spanish.
Though anyone could have signed up prior to the reading and presented their favorite poem, that fact was lost on some of the audience. Junior Kathryn Hicks was only one of the audience members who brought poetry with her in anticipation.
“It was too structured,” she said. “There was already a schedule. Every poetry reading should be open to people to read.”
Despite the missed opportunity to read her selected poem, Hicks enjoyed listening to others, and she was not alone in this. Junior Ashleigh Phelps seemed enchanted after the reading.
“The way [Smith] reads things,” Phelps said, “he really puts feelings into words.”
Powerful words and feelings rang through the Gallery as readers chimed in with their favorites.
“Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands,” read senior Honey Smith from cummings’ “somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond,” one of the event’s moving selections.
“I can be heard humming in the night,” read Eleanor Branch, Assistant Professor of English, from Mari Evans’ “I Am a Black Woman.”
English Instructor Jenn Brown, who helped plan the event, hopes that hum turns into a buzz around campus as people begin to think about literature. She contributed a selection from Rilke, entitled “The Ninth Elegy.”
“There’s a need for a literary culture,” said Brown. “Having people read poems that they love … connects us. This is a way of celebrating that.