By: Kathy Anguiano
English Club Room At University Hall (Picture: Kathy Anguiano)
The UIC English Club hosted their first open mic of this fall semester on October 26th. Welcoming any and all students to swing by to listen or go up and read a poem, short story, sing a song, etc. Anything was acceptable even if it wasn’t your own original piece, as long as you made it your own that is all that mattered.
Nerves filled the air and reverberated across the whole room, initially not too many people signed up to read anything and the English Club officers were really trying their best to encourage students. As time went on and as people performed, more and more students were slowly working up the courage to go up there and read or sing something.
“You can use the mic if you want!” shouted one of the officers to junior Diana Gurrola, “no because then you’ll see me shake..” giggles could be heard all across the room. Diana read her poem titled “I Think About Love”, and was definitely my favorite of the night. Her poem consisted of all the things she loved, whether big or small it was all lovable.
“I think about how much I loved the mouse I accidentally killed and how I mourned their death.
I think about how much I wanted to love God and for God to love me enough to let me talk to the mouse and explain it was an accident and that I loved them, even though I never met them while alive.”
Diana is an English major working towards a double concentration in creative and professional writing. She is also working towards the heritage Spanish certificate. Diane shared, “During high school, I tried to write my own poems… they were really bad, but then you start learning about structure and lines.” Eventually working her way up step by step into the poetry she writes now, “I just like to talk about myself. All my poetry is about myself, and it’s a way to process my emotions or situations that I’ve been through.”
It is so fascinating how through something as simple as a poem someone can manage to share an entire experience they have dealt with.
I asked Diana why she liked sharing her poems, through laughs and with complete honesty she replied, “ I don’t! But I have to! I think there are some things that I like to share. For people to have a knowledge of, but there are some things I would prefer to keep to myself.”
Freshman, Hannah Guerra, also took the stand to share a poem she wrote titled, “Turritopsis Dohrnii, the Immortal Jellyfish”
“When I was a kid, I felt I never had enough time. Visiting the forest, a museum, a park, a festival, or a person, the visit always had to end at some time. I could never read all the books, see all the movies, visit all the places, learn all the knowledge. The whole world was new to me, and I wanted to know it, instead of staying in place, my life flickering like a candle and eventually going out.”
Hannah is an English major with her concentration in literature in English. She has had some of her work featured in the “Elgin Community College Spire Journal” but her ultimate goal is to write a book.
“My earliest memories of writing are when I was literally five, six years old and I would make up stories in my mind. Nowadays I try to write them down”
Hannah shared that she often writes more long forms of fiction, but overtime she got more into poetry, especially with the comfort of the open mic scene and feeling that it’s easier to share an entire piece of poetry, “I’d say it’s the most welcoming environment you can be in and a place where you can say whatever you wanna say and there’s no consequences.
She shared “going up there it’s very scary, but the feeling afterward is what makes it worth it. If you write something then it’s just this random thing on this scrap of paper hidden somewhere. But if you read it at an open mic or anywhere else, or even if you just share it with anybody, then it goes out into the world a little bit and becomes its own thing… I made that. I wrote something that had an effect on people.”
Before going to this open mic I fully expected to only hear original poems, but quickly the English Club announced that anything was welcome. I was taken by surprise when I saw two students walking in with their guitars on their back.
Senior Wyatt Porter is the president of English club, and was the first person to break the ice at open mic with his own original songs “Rabbit” and “The Long Now” which will be featured on his upcoming album. He has always had a big passion for reading and writing which was all fostered from his love for lego series, novels, and comics. Like much of his other music “Rabbit” came to Wyatt in a dream. Sometimes he dreams of a melody, chord progression, or a lyric and in an instant his eyes shoot open and he immediately needs to write it down to not forget it.
“I’ll have these really cinematic dreams, like a story, but dreams are so impressionistic, they don’t always have a narrative you can easily follow. I dream of all of these details, and I know exactly how they fit together, but I can’t really describe the narrative so I adapt that into a song instead.”
Wyatt performing upcoming song “Rabbit” (picture: Ness Gorlewski)
Wyatt attended his first open mic that was also being run by the English Club in 2022 and from then stuck by eventually becoming president.
“I think one of the biggest euphoric parts of creating, especially in the realm of English, is having other people consume what you create. So it feels amazing on the one hand to create, but then it feels amazing for someone to see and acknowledge what you’ve created.”
Wyatt’s audio recording set up
The next music performance at open mic was from junior, Spencer Hendren, who is an information and decisions science major. His love for creating began when he was a child building train sets and legos with his dad, then he began to make stop motion videos with them to tell stories. Soon Spencer had worked his way up to participating in his school’s musicals where he would act and play piano. With time his love continued to grow until he began making some of his music coming into UIC. Taking the stage was nothing new to Spencer and he had already performed at various open mics.
Spencer performing at previous open mic (picture: Ness Gorlewski)
“The number one thing I enjoy is the response from the crowd when mid performance they want to clap but instead it snaps! You feel like oh oh ! I’m playing well I gotta keep this up! When I start I’m just looking at the guitar, my hair’s covering my whole face, but then I’m getting progressively more confident when I’m playing so I’m looking at the crowd more. I’m making eye contact. It’s been a lot of fun!”
Spencer performing at open mic (picture: Ness Gorlewski)
The remainder of the night was full of laughter, snaps, claps, and smiles as the audience carefully and attentively listened to those pushing through their nerves to share their work to a room full of strangers.
For any questions on future open mics or English Club activities please visit: https://instagram.com/englishclubatuic?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
For more of Wyatt’s music visit his Spotify: Dead Again
and Bandcamp!: Dead Again
For more of Spencer’s music visit his youtube: Spennythespoo
