Undergraduate students and faculty gathered at the John Arthur Cafe on Wednesday for the undergraduate Poet’s Cafe, an open mic event hosted by the Creative Writing program that offered students interested in poetry a welcoming community space to share their work.
Tina Chang ‘91, an English professor and the director of creative writing, and Joseph Weil, an English professor, spearheaded the event, inviting their current and former students and any other undergraduates interested in poetry to read aloud original pieces.
As fellow students gathered at the intimate cafe tables to listen, the presenting student poets shared poems about a wide range of topics, including contemporary pop culture references, meditations on grief, love and death, Fortnite, Diddy and recovery. Whether the reading was playful or serious, every student was met with a warm round of applause, and student poets were encouraged to share as many times as they felt comfortable.
Georgia Kirshenbaum, one of the participating student poets at the event and a sophomore majoring in English, shared her poems “The Unfinished Sentence” and “A Girl is a Ghost Story,” adding that she is working on a creative project that centers the latter poem.
“I was so nervous, but having my professor here was really comforting, and everyone seemed so nice,” Kirshenbaum said. “I loved how vulnerable everyone else was with their poems, and it just really encouraged me and inspired me.”
Kirshenbaum is a current student of Weil’s and commented on the significance of writing and sharing poetry as a longstanding creative tradition.
“I heard … something about how we need engineering, how we need science, things like that, but to live, we need the arts,” Kirshenbaum said. “So I think that’s very much true. I think you know, the arts, TV, movies, going to see a movie with your friend, a Broadway show, writing, journaling, painting — that’s what makes life worth living. And I think we shouldn’t just survive anymore. I think we should learn to live. And these events can bring a lot of happiness to people.”
Weil further elaborated on the importance of creating community in artistic spaces and drew attention to the meaningful, emotional experience of being present at open mics.
“Everybody has a poem somewhere, and at certain times in their life — maybe a breakup, maybe they’re in love — they’re writing a poem, good, bad, it doesn’t matter,” Weil said. “See, the thing with an open reading is, it’s like a wedding reception. Everybody’s welcome.”
Chang oversees the Binghamton Center for Writers, the SUNY Organized Research Center associated with the creative writing program that foregrounds a series of programs, including the Distinguished Writers Series, Common Ground, the Binghamton Writer’s Project and Harpur Palate. Over the course of her career, Chang’s extensive experience in creative writing communities has emphasized the need for communal artistic spaces.
“There is a high demand for a creative writing community,” Chang said. “Ever since we came out of the COVID era, there’s been a desire to come together. And I think that there has to be a life that exists outside of the classroom. I think what happens in the classroom is education, instruction — and then there’s a whole other space where students reside, where they’re wishing and wanting to interact with other writers.”
As an alumna, Chang also commented on the importance of continuing the open mic readings for writers on campus.
“It was after my education at Binghamton that I did my very first reading, and it was so empowering,” Chang said. “And it helped me to feel so much of a part of the writing world that I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to give that opportunity to students now, while they’re in school, so they can feel that feeling, and then once they graduate, if it ever feels lonely, if it ever feels that they’re on the path alone, they can understand and know and remember this feeling that they were a part of something here.”
The Creative Writing program and the Binghamton Center for Writers have plenty of other upcoming events for students looking for spaces to share their talent with other creatives. In addition to recurring series, the program will be partnering with the School of the Arts for the SOAR Jam on April 17, an opportunity for student poets and student composers to collaborate on original pieces and perform them on stage.
“It’s something that’s cumulative, it’s not something that just exists for tonight,” Chang said. “The next time students hear that there’s another Poet’s Cafe, it’ll spark their imagination, and they’ll say ‘I remember the last time I gathered the courage. Now, I’m actually going to bring a friend and tell them they can do it, too.’”