Poetry unites students, community

Poets throughout the Milledgeville community and beyond gathered April 10 in the basement of Blackbird Coffee for the third annual Poetic Notions Poetry Fest, sponsored by Art as an Agent for Change.

AAC has been a Registered Student Organization since 2006. It was founded by alumni Jamie Fleming, Odinaka Ezeokoli and Paul Ayo Grigsby.

Ezeokoli acted as the host of the event, while Grigsby secured the lineup.

Grigsby is now a secondary education graduate student at GCSU and still puts a lot of work into AAC.

“The $5 is a fundraiser toward a nonprofit organization,” Grigsby said. “And the nonprofit is youth enrichment with public schools and youth organizations.”

Not all of the poets that performed are based in Milledgeville.

“They’re from across the state,” Grigsby said. “One is a graduate student from Syracuse University. There are some Mercer University students here and I think Macon State as well.”

The 16 poets were also joined by musicians, including Emmanuel Little, Blind Child’s Jason Trankle and Emerson Stephens and Thomas Kay.

“Generally with poetry we can deal with it in doses,” Grigsby said. “We like to give people a taste of poetry and then a taste of music. It renews the appetite for poetry.”

The poets that performed all had varying amounts of experience in writing and performing, ranging from a year to a decade.

Jerome German, a sophomore biology major, has only been writing poetry for a year.

“I didn’t start until about second semester freshman year,” German said. “(Grigsby) kind of forced me into trying it because I really didn’t want to and then when I tried it I found out I could really do it. After he showed me that I did know how to write, I wanted to continue writing. I joined up with the AAC and from then on it’s been a growing process working within the group.”

Not all of the poets that performed were a part of AAC, as not all of them were GCSU students.

Bryan Collins, who also goes by Diva B, has been writing poetry since he was 16 years old.

“I’ll be 26 this year,” Collins said. “So it’s been 10 years. I am not a part of AAC. I’ve been friends with (Grigsby) since Blackbird opened, so back when they were first doing poetry I knew him. Every time I hit a poem thing in town he’s there.”

Tameka Dean, a senior biology major, has been writing poetry since she was in elementary school.

“I didn’t really realize that’s what it was until my college years,” Dean said. “But I’ve been writing it for a while now.”

Dean has been a member of AAC since it first began, but became more serious about it once she saw the organization in action.

“I got more involved in (AAC) and saw the actual mission of what they do, as far as the different topics and issues that they address through the arts, such as poetry,” Dean said. “Then I’ve watched it expand beyond poetry to include things like graffiti art, people playing the violin, musicians. It was just a way for us to address a lot of issues that the community commonly has to confront from a wide range, from poverty to sexism to depression to racism and things like that. When I got more involved, more knowledgeable about the mission, it definitely made me more excited about joining the cause.”

Posted by Courtney Murrah on Apr 16 2010. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry