Red Earth Readings

The Peacock’s Feet introduces new events and features

This year, The Peacock’s Feet fans its feathers by launching some new ideas like a music section, underclassmen open mic night, a website and re-vamping special events like the Red Earth Readings.
For the first time ever, according to Peggy Des Jardines, editor of The Peacock’s Feet and senior creative writing and art major, The Peacock’s Feet will include a music section. Bands and artists can submit songs to The Peacock’s Feet to win the prize of being mentioned in the book, having a CD distributed and a playlist available online for download.
“Also, the top two submissions will get a chance to perform at Blackbird Coffee,” Des Jardines said.
In addition to the music section, The Peacock’s Feet will host open mic nights for underclassmen to get the introduction and intermediate creative writing students more involved.
“We’ll host it and we’ll organize it for them, but they’ll be the ones reading,” Des Jardines said. “We just want to get the underclassmen more involved because people who are in the upper level workshops tend to have more of a community, and we just want to start that for the younger kids.”
A website is also in the works for The Peacock’s Feet, according to Des Jardines.
To emphasize the Red Earth Readings, The Peacock’s Feet will host only three this year, instead of doing so every two weeks, as it had in the past. At the first Red Earth Reading of the year, held Monday at Blackbird Coffee, Christopher Dulaney, junior creative writing major, Samm Severin, senior creative writing major, and Will Lewis, senior creative writing major read some of their own work. Lewis read fiction, Dulaney read poetry and Severin read non-fiction.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to be able to he work I’ve been doing since I’ve been a student here and to get used to getting out there,” Dulaney said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity.”
The folks behind The Peacock’s Feet hope to catch more students’ attention with this year’s additions, changes and innovations.
“Last year when I was on The Peacock’s Feet I was sort of dissatisfied with how many people we were reaching, and I just feel like we can reach such a larger audience. I just want to serve a larger audience than we have been serving,” Des Jardines said.
Des Jardines hopes that music’s inclusion will serve to expand The Peacock’s Feet’s scope. “Before, it was kind of ‘for English majors by English majors’, maybe it still is, but I just want everybody to be involved, not just us. So that was the main reason for the music section, because so many more people are interested in music.”
“I think it’s really going to help spread the word,” said Lauren Holman, art editor of The Peacock’s Feet and senior art major. “We want to let the student body know about it.”