On Friday, readers from five of the Binghamton Poetry Project workshops — ranging from elementary school students to retirees — came to Science I to share their work with each other and with Binghamton University students and faculty. The project, one of many efforts connecting students and the local community, offers free poetry workshops in Broome County for local residents and BU students.
Eight-year-old Alexis Van Tassel read with remarkable animation a poem in which the speaker is a ballerina in a music box, thankful to be alive when she is not supposed to be. It was just one of a few children’s poems that exhibited exceptional depth in subject matter. The poets in the adult workshops read on a wide variety of subjects as well, from personal relationships and reflective narratives to meditations on the act of writing itself.
Some of the readers jumped right into reading their poems, while others provided background information on themselves and their poetry, revealing some of the many reasons that people are drawn to the workshops. One woman shared that she started writing poetry after her husband passed away and she had more free time. A young man from Brooklyn, who used to be a ghostwriter for hip-hop songs, is now trying to get back into writing. If people think that there is an archetypal Broome County character, this event shattered that perception.
The reading also gave the community poets a peek at the poetry being produced by the University’s own students. Riley Huntington read her poem “Spare Key,” which won her this semester’s Harpur Palate Undergraduate contest in poetry. Huntington, a junior double-majoring in Arabic and English, is enrolled in Creative Writing 350A: Intermediate Poetry Workshop this semester.
The Binghamton Poetry Project was founded four years ago by Nicole Santalucia, a poet and doctoral candidate in English at BU and a poetry editor at Harpur Palate. Santalucia began the project with the intention of uniting University students and locals through poetry. The workshops are directed mostly by other English department graduate students and provide a comfortable setting for people to share and improve their writing.
Anita Alkinburg Shipway has attended Poetry Project workshops for a few years and has participated in the adult workshop at Mary Wilcox Memorial Library in Whitney Point. Shipway believes in the creative process of writing poetry in a group setting.
“I was attracted to the process of writing in the presence of others,” Shipway said. “Doing it in a group, the energy is there, and you sort of ride along.”
Poetry lends itself to being both communal and profoundly personal, which Santalucia said is essential to what the project has become.
“There would not be a successful project without each participant who is willing to go on the inward journey and discover their personal truths,” Santalucia wrote in an email.
After Santalucia graduates at the end of this year, the Binghamton Poetry Project will be run by Abby Murray, a poet and doctoral candidate in English at BU and an associate editor at Harpur Palate. Murray hopes to maintain the energy that the Poetry Project has garnered within the community. As for the presence of poetry on campus, Murray said she feels that the poetry program often gets overlooked. However, she expressed confidence in the University’s potential to foster a greater poetry presence.
“Every discipline has its spotlight and its moment,” Murray said.
In its four years, the Binghamton Poetry Project has impacted the local community by bringing out a shared passion for poetry that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
Correction: This article originally incorrectly stated that there were five readers at the event. There were readers present from five of the poetry workshops.
Correction: This article originally incorrectly stated that the Binghamton Poetry Project workshops take place on campus. The workshops take place at several locations in Broome County, including the Broome County Library and the Mary Wilcox Library.
Clarification: This article originally contained the sentence “It was just one of a few poems where she exhibited exceptional depth in her subject matter.” The sentence now reads “It was just one of a few children’s poems that exhibited exceptional depth in subject matter.”