Every April, National Poetry Month rolls around with posters, readings, and the occasional social media hashtag. But for me, poetry isn’t just a once-a-year celebration. It’s a way of seeing, connecting, and, most importantly, building community.
I didn’t always feel this way. Like many English majors, I started with poetry as text: something to be annotated in the margins of an anthology, something to discuss in class with careful attention to enjambment and imagery. Don’t get me wrong, I love that kind of close reading. But I only truly fell in love with poetry when I realized it wasn’t just an academic exercise; it was a conversation, alive and breathing, happening in real time.
That realization came when I started attending, and later helping with, Esprit, our campus literary magazine’s readings. These gatherings are nothing like the quiet margins of a textbook. Instead, students step up to the microphone and share their own poems, their own voices, their own stories.
There’s something electric about hearing a peer read their work aloud. It’s raw, vulnerable, and brave in a way that reminds you poetry doesn’t live in theory, it lives in us. Whether it’s a freshman nervously unfolding a crumpled page or a senior delivering words honed over years, the effect is the same: the room becomes a space of honesty and connection.
One of my favorite memories from an Esprit reading was when a student read a poem about her sister: growing up together, exploring the world around them, and the strange tenderness that comes with siblinghood. The images she used were so ordinary, but as she read them, they became extraordinary. You could feel the room leaning closer, everyone remembering their own siblings, their own growing pains and inside jokes.
That moment reminded me why poetry matters. It wasn’t polished in the way a classroom workshop might demand, but it was real. It was someone standing up and saying, “Here is my life, in my words,” and the rest of us recognizing ourselves in it.
As Sigma Tau Delta members, we already know the power of words. But sometimes we forget that the most transformative poetry doesn’t always come from an award-winning collection, it comes from the student next to us, brave enough to share their story.
National Poetry Month is the perfect chance to celebrate that. Go to a campus reading. Cheer on your classmates. Maybe even read a poem of your own. When we do this, poetry stops being “homework” and becomes what it’s always been: a shared human experience.
So this April, I hope you’ll celebrate poetry not just as readers, but as participants in a living conversation. Because poetry isn’t only something we analyze, it’s something we create, together.
Faith Montagnino
Associate Student Representative, Eastern Region, 2025-2026
Mu Omicron Chapter
University of Scranton, Scranton, PA
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