The Word of Mouth Open Mic Poetry Night was quite a success, which was at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 11 in the Union Underground. While there were only a few speakers, the audience was quite varied with people coming from the Mabee library and the LLC to listen to them. Whether it was in the Underground itself or on the floor above leaning over the railings to get a good look, audience members listened to poems. For a lot of people, poetry is something that helps them escape, helps them put their thoughts and feelings about everyday life and happenings into order. The speakers read poems that meant something to them, as well as having a bit of fun with one speaker’s stand up comedy, which was exciting for the viewers.

Melisa Posey was the coordinator for the event, and she was hoping for a larger audience, but was satisfied at the number that showed up, even though she would have preferred a few more speakers.

“This poetry night is something that I have been working on for a while,” said Posey. “This was one of the first ones of the semester, and there will be two more as well in March and April.”

Being in the Union Underground, there was not as much appeal as there would be if it had been in the library.

“Perhaps next time I will get it set up in the library since there are a lot more people that are there in the night around the time that I would like to do the poetry,” Posey said. 

Because of the amount of people who showed up, there was a variety of poems. Some were sad, some were heartwarming and others were quite funny. Posey brought her daughter who had read a few of her own original poems. Along with that, some of the speakers spoke multiple poems one after another to get over their stage fright in some ways and to get the reading over. One of the speakers even told a joke after they finished about the amount of time it took for them to gain courage in time for them to read.

Kristina Sharpton, criminal justice major and one of the speakers, really enjoyed the event.

“I truly love poetry. I have known Melisa for a while and she has been really hyping up the poetry night. I was extremely excited for this opportunity since I have never done or spoken my poetry in front of other people,” Sharpton said. “It is quite nerve-wracking to read things that mean something to me to other people. I swear I felt so hot, but it was fun and I am looking forward to the next two poetry nights where I can talk more about and tell my poetry with others.”