On Wednesday, October 31st, I attended the Fall Poetry Revel at Baruch College. The Poetry Revel was held on the 14th floor in room 270. By the time I arrived at the event all the tables and chairs were full, but I was still able to hear and see everything from the back row.  The event attracted a great gathering of Baruch students and professors who all share the same passion to share and listen to great works of poetry. The atmosphere of the room was very upbeat and inviting, and provided the students and professors a safe place to perform their poetic works. Professor Kelly works in the English department and  seemed to take charge of the event. I viewed Professor Kelly as the “host” of the Poetry Revel, who is in charge of starting off the event and introducing each performer to the “stage.” There were students and Professors who volunteered to perform a poem they have wrote for class, or a poem written by someone else. In the spirit of Halloween, a few students had taken it upon themselves to dress up for the occasion. Nevertheless, the performer I decided to draw my attention to as a spectator was Professor Kelly.

Professor Kelly welcomed everyone to the event and was the first individual to perform a poem. She was dressed in a professional composed outfit; she wore a floral print blazer, white bottom down shirt, and black pants. Before she began sharing the poem she composed, she stated that it is okay to be nervous and that she was nervous herself. The point she made had led me to look out for any cues that would reveal any nervousness she may be feeling like  hands shaking, stuttering of words, or absence of eye contact with the audience. The first poem she shared was inspired by the poet Mary Oliver and was  titled “Ombre.” She stood at the front center of the room and held a couple of sheets of paper in front of her. She stood tall with good posture and began reciting the words of the poem. The poem’s overall theme was about love, but she spoke at a fast pace, which made it a bit difficult to absorb all that words she was sharing. The way she said the words of the poem was in a calm tone and sounded the same way she may have a casual conversation with a friend. She never made any hand gestures or dramatic body language to emphasize a point like a few performers have. She stood grounded in her spot of the “stage” and would constantly look up and down from her paper to make eye contact with the audience. All the student performers after her would only stare into their phone or paper and read aloud. Professor Kelly would make sure to keeping looking up and down from her paper to enhance her performance and connect with the audience.

Professor Kelly finished with her first poem “Ombre” in a short amount of time since her poem was not long. She made some funny remarks and jokes to keep the audience engaged before she continued on to perform her second poem. The second poem was called “Zombie Love Poem” and was six-parts long. She wrote this lengthy poem in the spirit of Halloween and shared with the audience in advance that the poem’s language was gory. She went into her craft of writing with a theme in mind, and let her thoughts of Halloween work their way into writing. The poem included mythical creatures like zombies and vampires, and gross things like torn flesh and profuse amount of blood.  As she began reciting the poem, she stood in the same manner she had with the last poem. The soothing and tranquil tone she used for this poem did not match the gruesome and frightening language of her second poem. I would have expected her to speak in a more powerful and booming tone as opposed to the more casual tone she had performed the poem in. Despite the absence of dramatic body language, she was able to emphasize certain points of the poem by making dramatic pauses in between lines or slowing down to dramatize a point. For example, one moment that remains clear in my mind was when she said the words “sweet sweet flesh.” She was able to bring those words to life by saying those words slowly and looking point blank at the audience. As I stated earlier on, she said she was nervous, but her posture and composure did make that feeling evident. The only thing I can note was her hands shaking a little when she was holding the sheets of paper in front of her.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience as a spectator at the Baruch Poetry Revel, and I hope to attend other readings available in the future. I believe hearing a poem spoken out loud by a performer is so much more powerful than just reading a poem silently by yourself. Performers are able to bring the words to life with their voice and body language, which  undoubtedly helped augment the words of the poem.