What I love about Conn is the plethora of activities that happen on this campus. Dances, seminars, guest speakers, clubs — the list goes on. A friend of mine asked me to attend her poetry performance and I happily agreed. Her group is called Reflexions, and what was especially fun was watching students perform their own poetry. We spend a lot of time hearing readings of poems by others, so it is a rarity to hear poets read their own work.

This event wasn’t a typical poetic reading about sappy romance. Instead, the anthology was based on the theme of love and every poet/performer offered different perspectives on the concepts of love. I got to listen to beautiful pieces about what it is like to be in love with an abusive person; what it means to love being a Haitian woman; what it is like to be in love with a person of the same sex; what it is like to be in love for the first time; what it is like to fall out of love; and what it is like to have love torn from you. Some poems had a melodic structure while other poems had a prose-like structure. Every performer offered insights into not only the idea of love, but, more interestingly, the experience of love.

Besides the actual work and material produced, what really amazed me was the community of people willing to come and support their friends. People here are willing to take time out of their busy schedules and be there for people whom they appreciate and respect. The audience engaged with their peers, often by snapping in agreement to something the poet said or nodding their heads. No one was texting or looking bored and, of course, the audience shared a loud applause to thank the poets for being brave.