On Tuesday, April 1, the Friends of the Albion College Library will be hosting the 15th annual Library Poetry Fest. The festival will be held on Shakespeare’s 450th birthday and will begin at 3 p.m. in the Wendell Will Room in the Stockwell Libarary.
The event is open to all faculty, staff, students and members of the community. All forms of poetry in any language are accepted and encouraged. The fest prides itself on its diversity and its open door policy – anyone can come and go as they please.
“I think it’s nice brining together people who might otherwise not be in a room together,” said Marion Meilaender, organizer of the fest. “I would say that even people who don’t think of themselves as poetry lovers could find out by being there that they get some enjoyment out of it. I think it could be something of a revelation.”
A yearly highlight of the library’s poetry fest is a poetry performance by a celebrity power couple. The couple is always a surprise, but in year’s past Chancellor Donna Randall and her husband as well as Provost Susan Conner and her husband have been recognized. This year’s celebrity couple will perform a humorous poem to end the fest with a bang.
The celebrity couple isn’t the only faculty and staff who attend the library poetry fest. Spanish professor Kalen Oswald has been a huge supporter of the fest since 2002.
“I like being able to go at a busy time of year when stress levels seem to be high, to be able to go and be reminded that there is beauty in the human race,” Oswald sid. “To be reminded that why we’re here is more than just our jobs, our existence is more than just our jobs, more than just the day the day, it gives us the chance to appreciate beauty I guess.”
Apart from reading poems, there are also prizes available for people who attend.
“Somewhere around the halfway point I call an intermission and as people get more refreshments we do the prize drawing which involves poetry quotations,” Meilaender said. “If you are the person who has the completion of the quotation that I call out, you read it off, you come up and select one of the prizes.”
Up to 55 people are expected to participate.
“I just like all the students different takes on poetry,” said Megan Connolly, Wayne County senior. “I think it’s really good to experience poetry once a day.”
Photo via Albion College
Leave a Reply