Re-Verse Recap (March 11, 2010)

The first annual Re-Verse is completed. I use the word "annual" because we're definitely doing this again. It was too much fun to let it fade away into the Lawton fog. We had about 25 people show up and Amber Harrington, Sigma Tau Delta's president, said it was the best attended event STD has hosted all year.

I wish I didn't ramble on so much at the beginning with introductions, but no one ran away screaming. Anyway, we had both faculty and students read. Next year, we hope to increase our presenters to 30, with people participating from both Cameron and the Lawton/Southwerstern OK community.

Highlights... Drs. John Morris, William Carney, Ginette Baillergeon, and Vivian Tomlinson all gave us great poems performed passionately. Dr. Baillergeon, in particular, wowed us with two poems, one in French. She recited a longer poem by Carl Sandburg and reminded us that not all Sanburg poems are four lines long. Both of her poems were long ones and I don't think she faltered once.

Several students read, both English majors and students from other disciplines. All together, eleven people read a poem each and not one person had a difficult time reciting their work. Not one. I've been to recitation events before, and I've never seen one without a few long pauses. Long pauses are perfectly fine in such a difficult situation, but the fact that there was not one at our event is very impressive.

Also, we contributed lots of food to the Lawton Food Bank. This was Amber's idea and it is a good one. Future events only mean further donations. We are considering a fall date for next year's even (maybe a bi-annual thing) simply because we don't want to wait twelve months to do this again.