Ushering in the weekend, the Phoenix literary magazine held a poetry night early Friday night.
At the Golden Roast Coffee Melrose location on 825 Melrose Pl., Phoenix showcased poetry and art from students at the University of Tennessee. Golden Roast closed, then opened their doors at 7:30 p.m. for people to gather before they began at 8 p.m. The event lasted almost an hour.
Phoenix was able to put the event on through help of the editorial staff, like copy editor Joshua Strange who works as a barista at Golden Roast. Strange said that planning the night started a couple months ago, but they could do it at the Golden Roast because of his connections.
“Classes were back in person and so we wanted to throw something, a little bash, because it seemed like there’s so much potential,” Strange said. “A lot of people on the editorial board had been to poetry nights, and we knew we wanted to put on a Phoenix event, and me and another barista who works also at the Phoenix we’re like, ‘Might as well do it here, cause we know the manager.’”
There wasn’t a central theme to the night. Instead, the speakers and art presented their pieces without constraints. It’s one of the first events that the Phoenix has put on since the COVID-19 pandemic.
UT's literary magazine The Phoenix hosts a poetry night at The Golden Roast coffee house on Melrose with both scheduled poets and open-mic on Friday Oct. 8, 2021.
At 7:30 p.m., people began to file in with masks on. They were immediately greeted by Editor-in-Chief Sadie Kimbrough, who cooked up quesadillas and held a raffle right next to the entrance. She floated around there until the cheese ran out before joining Strange and some others behind the bar.
In the back right corner of the space, several pieces of art were placed along the wall. Artists included were Jace Hermanto, Kevin Krieps, Jana Ghezawi, Faith Belt and art editor for Phoenix Rose Hamm, who coordinated the art selection.
With conversation buzzing and coffee ordered, poetry editor Aslan Gossett introduced the event at 8 p.m. He stood in front of the crowd that filled the coffee shop and gained their attention, filling people in on the night and announcing each speaker. Gossett left the stage for each speaker before coming back up to introduce the next one.
There were seven student speakers in total, with some reading only one poem while a few read up to three. The poets include Aly Sigler, Fisher Sexton, Presley Cowan, Ben-Chumney Perez, Alexa White, Aly Carpenter and The Daily Beacon’s campus editor Daniel Dassow.
They read a variety of published and unpublished work, detailing their feelings, formative memories and breakups, among other topics. Each poem was followed by the reverberation of snaps from the audience.
In the middle of the poetry night, they took a short break. Afterwards, Alexa White came up and recited some more poetry. White was the only student to speak more than once. The event ended 15 minutes later, concluding around 9 p.m.
Editor-in-Chief Kimbrough commented on the attendance from behind the quesadilla stand, with the crowd almost extending outside.
“It’s a lot more people than I thought would come, which is great,” Kimbrough said. “I hope that we can inspire people to participate in an open mic in the future or submit to the magazine. I’m surprised by the number of people, I think we all are, and I think we’re all really excited by it too.”
They hope to do more poetry nights in the future as they look forward to their next publication in January along with an art gallery that they have planned.
Gossett closed the night while the crowd and staff reacted with resounding cries of “Submit to Phoenix.” With the raffle winner’s name drawn, the crowd bled into the streets at the closure of the night while the baristas and staff closed up shop on the first major Phoenix event in a long time.
