Every seat in the Holladay Theater, which holds a capacity of 50, was filled, leaving standing room only for this year’s annual Poetry Night on Oct. 23.
Over 50 people attended the event, which was hosted by the Writing Center, and 33 people performed.
Lori Jo Couch, director of the Writing Center, said she was happy with the turnout this year.
“This is probably the first year it had been more than 50 since Covid, since the pandemic,” she said. “So, yes, we are very happy with the turnout.”
Couch said the numbers have varied, but usually the attendance number is around 50. This year, though, was different.
“I thought this was a large Poetry Night, we had standing room only, so I think this was a very nice sized crowd,” she said.
Anna Muth, writing fellow, said the crowd number was one of the main differences she noticed this year compared to last year.
“Attendance. We had a lot more people I feel like than last year, and then obviously no costume contest this year,” Muth said. “But I feel like it all worked out because of the lack of costume contest, we had a lot more time for presenters which was really, really nice.”
Couch said there was no costume contest this year because it started to feel like the contest was overshadowing the poetry.
“It became, I thought, over the last couple of years, a little bit more of a costume contest than a Poetry Night,” she said. “And so the poems stopped being the kind of emphasis and it started turning toward being a costume contest.”
Couch said that a lot went into planning for the event, including scheduling, advertising and funding.
“The first important thing is finding a date that doesn’t conflict with anyone else’s date, so we had to change the date a couple times before we hit on one that worked,” she said.
Couch said even though the date was changed multiple times, there was still a scheduling conflict due to the college hosting the 60th Anniversary celebration at the same time as Poetry Night.
She said this was the first year the refreshments for Poetry Night were paid for.
“We were able to go to the Student Government and ask for funds for the refreshments and we’ve never been able to do that unless we were buying them out of our own pocket or getting donations or raising money,” she said. “So it was really nice to have the Student Government supply the refreshments.”
The poetry contest for original works are judged by the writing fellows on the promotions committee, and the winner will receive a candy basket. They will also have the chance to be published in the Agora, as well as have their poem used by the Inside Out Dance Ensemble.
Elizabeth Anson, who presented an original work at the event, said she was inspired by her creative writing class to come up with the poetic format she read.
Anson said she was pleased with this year’s event.
“I was definitely pleased with the turnout and with just the variety of poems that were presented tonight,” she said.
Muth said she had high expectations for this year’s poetry night, and those expectations were met.
“It definitely exceeded my expectations,” she said. “It was very, very cool to see how full the theater was and it was really awesome.”
