Poetry at the Bell Tower

Today, as part of the annual fine arts week on campus, the creative writing club that I sponsor held a poetry reading at the bell tower during lunch.

Turnout was low, which I think says a great deal about contemporary attitudes toward poetry (and toward the arts in general). Many students told me that the were hungry, so they went to lunch early rather than come to the reading even though I told them (irreverently, I'm told) that man cannot live by bread alone.

But I'm very thankful to the small group of people who came out (especially Hillary), to the two students who read their work, and to the two faculty members who joined me in reading.

One of my colleagues shared what she was planning to read on her blog earlier today. Another colleague read her favorite Billy Collins poem, which was appropriate since she had accompanied the creative writing club on our trip to hear him speak last month.

I read a pretty wide range of poems: "Owls," a villanelle I promised my fifth period I would read; "Night Running," an older piece influenced by Cummings; and "A Supercenter on Every Corner," a response to the Ginsberg poem with a similar name.