The high school expectation that everyone will find the perfect extracurricular to be involved in is often misleading. Poetry club is here to create a space welcoming for any student.
“I feel like the poetry aspect is like a front to get people to come together and have a good time. Obviously we can’t just have a club where people can just chill out, but it still brings people together,” co-founder senior Shaun Steverson said.
The poetry club was created at the beginning of the 2019 school year by Steverson and senior Derek Fosbender. The two started it as a place where students can go to be in a creative environment, but not in the traditional uptight setting of only “serious” poetry.
The poetry club is not as daunting as it seems, in fact, you don’t need to write poetry to be in it. The idea of the club is meant more to enjoy the poems people do share and create a safe, creative environment.
The only requirement is that a new member presents a Haiku about themselves (a form of poetry that is only three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the next and then back to five).
“We’re not depicting everything, just let your mind wander to wherever it wants to go,” Fosbender said.
The club meets every Tuesday from 2:45 to 3:45 in room 2108. The meetings start out with any new members introducing themselves by performing their Haiku. Next, they put a topic of the day and a new form of poetry on the board and then the members get to writing.
Usually, there will be several topics of the day, giving the members multiple opportunities to share what they have created to the rest of the club. After everyone has had the chance to present, everyone votes on a poem of the week.
Senior Miah Lorenz has won poem of the week three times.
“If you’re looking for a good laugh, [it’s] a good place to go,” Lorenz said.
Each week the members learn a new type of poetry and get to laugh, create and share with their peers. But most importantly, the club focuses on making the place a fun space where people have the chance to be creative and have fun.
“We just wanted everybody to have the opportunity to come and do something creative together,” Steverson said.
