Student poetry member publishes new book

By Alex Muller

Josh Bowers (standing) reads his poetry from the couch during one Readings! meeting. Photo provided by Dustin SansonMost sit cross-legged on a living room floor, eyes closed, as someone reads aloud. But sometimes poems require participation—call and response, moving into the kitchen for a countertop stage, or crowding into a bathroom to test the weight capacity of the porcelain toilet bowl.

It is a normal Saturday night; Winthrop students are reading poetry to one another. 

The group is called “Readings!,” and was started last spring by Josh Bowers and Javy Gwaltney, Alumni of Winthrop’s English Department.

To get Readings! off the ground, the duo plastered the second floor of Bancroft with flyers and crashed The Anthology’s issue release-party to ask, “have you heard, are you coming?”

Junior English major Josh Dunn now coordinates Readings!.

“We wanted a place for Winthrop students to showcase their creative work that was separate from the University,” Dunn said.

The group moves from apartments to houses to backyard bonfires --  any space offered up by group members who live close to campus. 

The atmosphere is casual so students will be more willing to share their work. Those who are of age often bring alcohol. Others offer snacks or baked goods, while some only bring themselves and their poetry.

Readings! have been growing in popularity since they began. Events are held as often as possible, usually once a month, and average about 30 attendees.

“We’re always seeing new faces,” Dunn said, “and we love it.”

The group invites students and friends to join in the events, whether they take part in reading or just enjoy the atmosphere.

“It’s difficult to write when you feel like you don’t have an audience,” Dunn said, “and Readings! gives you that audience while putting you in contact with other great writers.”

One of the writers is Samuel Kendall, a former student at York Tech. He has recently published his second book of poetry entitled, Evenings with a Goose Girl. 

Kendall has been a fixture in the group since a friend invited him to the second formal event, held around a massive bonfire.

Since then Kendall has been supportive of the group, even offering up his own apartment for a reading.

“Hearing Josh Bowers yell poetry from my couch has definitely made me a better writer,” Kendall said, who described his first published work as “a piece of junk (which) no one should buy.”

He says his second work is an improvement. Comprised of material from January to October, Evenings with a Goose Girl is a “story about placing a woman on a pedestal, living in her shadow for a time and then tearing her down with vigor.”

“It’s not the best love story ever,” Kendall said. “It’s not the best verse ever… But it’s my contribution.”

This contribution certainly means exciting new things for the Readings!,

“It does serve as a huge push for all of us to get our work published,” Dunn said.

Whether it’s getting work out into the world or into someone else’s living room, Readings! is creating a showcase for artists that need to be heard.