On Friday, Sept. 25 in the Daily Grind, Inside Out Poetry hosted their first open mic night of the semester. The event allowed students to share poetry, music, stories and anything else they’d created with their peers.
Inside Out is a poetry club dedicated to empowering students from diverse backgrounds. The organization provides a safe place for students to express their personal experiences and share their works, creating a more welcoming and inclusive campus environment through spoken word poetry and other artistic mediums. The club is known for its “One Tribe, Many Stories” event, which takes place during Orientation and features a wide array of student-written stories and monologues.
The open mic event lent a more personal approach than “One Tribe, Many Stories” and saw many different forms of artistic expression, all of which fostered a creative and immersive atmosphere. With a sign-up sheet at the front door, students were encouraged to write their name down and share anything they wanted.
One by one, performers delivered their artwork, transforming the former coffee shop into a lively and exciting artistic hub.
Icarus Landaker ’27 and AJ Starck ’27 serve as co-presidents of Inside Out. They both joined the organization during their freshman years after seeing the “One Tribe, Many Stories” during their Orientation.
Landaker recalled the work that went into organizing this open mic and stepping into the co-president position alongside Starck.
“We kind of had to build a lot from the ground up because a lot of previous exec graduated and we had just become a registered student organization. It was difficult,” he said.
Landaker described how, originally, Inside Out’s open mics mostly drew participants from within the club. However, the events began to attract new performers over time through various outreach efforts.
“We started putting up flyers and advertising it on our Instagram and our GroupMe more, and over time, we started getting more people outside of the club and we started getting more forms of art,” they said. “We had more music coming, more prose pieces, rather than just poetry. ”
Inside Out takes pride in welcoming new performers into their events and encouraging non-club members to participate.
“We are always eager to hear new people and new stuff,” Landaker said.
Throughout each performance at the open mic, audience members were encouraged to engage with the art by snapping their fingers or nodding their heads. The high levels of audience participation cultivated a supportive ambiance that helped attendees and performers feel comfortable and welcomed.
“It almost kind of creates its own environment,” Starck said. “The people who show up to an open mic are usually artists and usually people who are kind of comfortable with being vulnerable, so we always get a very fun audience and people who are really engaged in the work and kind and open to receiving all kinds of different types of art.”
Marlo Gilkey ’29 found Inside Out at the Student Organizations and Activities Fair and performed for the first time at the open mic event on Friday.
“I found it really welcoming,” Gilkey said. “A lot of the people I had already gotten to know in club meetings, and so being able to come to an open mic and just already feel not so worried about performing for my first time was great.”
Kit Kassay ’29, Inside Out’s social chair, is responsible for managing the club’s social media accounts and advertising events like the open mic night around campus. She recalled the diverse types of art featured in this open mic event and the importance of variety within the club.
“It’s really, really awesome when people do comedy sets or music or anything else, because then we can build our community and get to see new kinds of things,” she said.
Starck shared how influential Inside Out has been on their time at the College.
“It’s just a space to not only write poetry and have time to write, but also a time to be vulnerable and to make friendships that way. It’s a really great space to just be creative and be yourself,” they said.
Landaker also mentioned how integral the club has been to their college experience.
“It’s shaped everything I’ve done here because I have this small community that has allowed me to continue an art form that is just inherently a part of my identity,” they said.
In addition to their open mic events, Inside Out provides many other opportunities for students to engage with their artistic passions. Next week, the club is hosting a poetry workshop featuring Historic Triangle Grand Slam champion and internationally ranked poet Ayanna Florence.
For those looking to attend an open mic event in the future, Inside Out will hold two more throughout the fall semester in October and November in the Daily Grind. For those looking to join the club and attend their meetings, they meet every Friday from 5:00-6:30 p.m. in Tucker Hall.
