The poetry festival Saturday in Peabody Hall included a variety of performers.
Creative minds came together Saturday as a group of southwest Ohio poets joined forces and engaged in a poetry festival at Miami University.
The poets shared their work Saturday afternoon and evening in the Leonard Theater, located in Peabody Hall. The free and open event included a potluck meal.
"It has a partly formal and partly informal feel," said cris cheek, assistant professor in the English department who coordinated the event.
"I think it went really wonderfully," said William Howe, visiting assistant professor in the English department.
During the showcase, there was a break following every fourth poet. Howe said even the breaks were good because they gave people a chance to actually get an opportunity to talk to the poets.
Howe said the real moving force behind the event was both cheek and Catherine Wagner, assistant professor in the English department.
"There was a wide variety of poems which included traditional lyric poems, experimental poems, sound poems and performance art," Howe said. "It was a pleasing turnout. With more people, it would have been far less comfortable and familiar."
cheek agreed.
"This is something that I've been wanting to do for a while," cheek said. "There happen to be a lot of interesting people in this area right now so we thought, why not get all these people together? We are effectively having a party and coming together as a community of people."
Howe said there were all sorts of poets at the event.
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"Possibly more than two-thirds of the poets at the event were well-published poets and they were accompanied by undergrad and grad students as well as people from the area who are starting out their careers," Howe said.
cheek said there are many prominent poets in southwest Ohio.
"Many of them are known not in the context of southwest Ohio but internationally and across the USA," cheek said.
cheek said there are about five to six serious poets with international reputations working at Miami.
The poets at this event included the Miami poets as well as poets from other universities and organizations in Cincinnati.
"We like the idea that people around here that are interested or fancy getting exposure to contemporary poets can just come along and be part of it and not feel excluded," cheek said.
Jacqueline Kari, graduate student in the English department, read at the poetry festival.
"I read some more traditional poems, line broken poems," Kari said. "It was really nice. I met a lot of people that I only really knew by name."
Kari said she thinks community is a really important part about being a writer.
"It seemed like everyone was having a good time," Kari said. "It's kind of hard with marathon festival days because you can burn out but I don't think that happened. We all had fun together."
Jessica Ponto is also a graduate student in English department. She has focused on visual poetry for the last couple of years and is now also working on lyric-style poems.
"I feel that it's a very welcoming atmosphere and there's a lot of camaraderie," Ponto said.
Before the event, Jonathan Lohr, graduate student in English department, said, "I think that it's going to be a lot of fun. There are a lot of cool writers, and I'm excited to be reading with them."
Lohr's reading was from a documentary project he's working on. Making weekly visits to the holiday aisle in Walgreen's, he's been writing poems about the changes that have been occurring during the switch from Halloween to Christmas.
Meghan Prichard, another graduate student in English department, said, "I'm excited to read with people like Cathy Wagner and chris cheek who already have books published. It's nice to have us all mingle together. I like the community that it makes."
Prichard read poems from her documentary project about road kill as well as a poem about a childhood memory with her sister and one about her father.
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