Thursday, September 17, marked the second meeting of the newly formed poetry club, Live Poet Society.

The club fosters an environment where all students who adore poetry in any and all of its forms can share or come to listen. Poetry club plans on becoming an outlet for students who like the art, regardless of skill.

“I think poetry allows people in general to express themselves in a creative, symbolic, and more emotional way than some other art forms, especially like short story writing or something like that,” says Jenna Gerlach, club sponsor.

Juniors Imani Bryant and Virginia Pruett, along with senior Austin Birchell came to Gerlach with the desire to spread the love of all forms of poetry. These include spoken word, free verse, haiku, limerick, monologue, slam poetry, acapella rap, and more. As one who shares their love, Gerlach consented to sponsor the newly born club.

“Just come to the club,” junior Imani Bryant enthusiastically says. “You don’t have to read a poem that’s your own. You could just present one, like we just presented two poems today. Both of which were not by any of the people who were in the club, both of them were by established writers who were on youtube. You don’t have to present. You could just come and listen. We have this cool system, where if you don’t want to present, you could just come up and put your poem on the board. You know, everyone can read it later if you’re comfortable with that.”

The differences in poetry can serve as one of its most appealing aspects. Not everything follows a specific pattern. Poetry can represent anything it chooses to be, as long as it gives off emotion.

“The poetry we read at school can be kind of boring, so it kind of turns a lot of people off of poetry, and I want to expose people to the poetry that’s really fun and exciting and stuff that you can relate to. It’s not just confusing words and weird spacing. It can be a lot of fun! It can be really relatable,” Bryant commented.

Looking towards the future, the club hopes to expand even further.

“I think, ultimately, we want to have like a slam poetry evening at the school,” Gerlach said. “Like, I know a lot of the students would like to share their work on a larger scale than just the club itself. And, we want to provide an outlet for everyone in the school to kind of speak their mind and kind of share their work and we kind promote any kind of poetry: slam poetry, acapella, anything really that anyone’s written and wants to share.”

For NC’s poets, poetry occupies a permanent place in their life that nothing could ever change. Poetry influences their everyday lives and provides a melodic beauty for mundane events in their life. Poetry club hopes to instill a unique sense of beauty in each and every one of their new members.

Virginia Pruett reflects, “Poetry has done a lot for my life and has really enhanced it in a way that nothing else has. Poetry makes me so happy, and I think if there’s a chance that it could make somebody as happy as it makes me. Then, that should be explored, and that should really be looked into and spread.”