LETTER TO THE EDITOR: En-rich-ment

It was a most unexpected vigil, but appropriate in its unexpectedness.

Looking back on the fully housed UHCL Open Mic Night commemoration of Adrienne Rich that went well over an hour, I am certain she would have approved.  For after all, the unordinary is often unexpected, and she was anything but.

So who was this Adrienne Rich we celebrated? According to the insightful account of  UHCL’s own, well-renown and retired professor of Literature and Humanities, Gretchen Mieszkowski, who acted as special guest lecturer for the evening, we learned that she was an American feminist poet.  We learned that her writing was explorative. She was passionate and wrote with passion. She was challenging and wrote to challenge. She was enthusiastic, transformative, and human.

Prior to this instruction, we participants old and new of the UHCL Open Mic Night truly did not know exactly what to expect. Although some of us were reasonably well acquainted with Rich, had studied her works independently, or as feminist texts for our courses, many of us were not nearly as knowledgeable of her life and works.

Furthermore, we had no idea that she had visited our campus not once but twice. As we listened to Dr. Mieszkowski and our other guest professors recite her works and share their impressions of her, we learned that she was very much a part of UHCL history. We took that to heart. So as the two candles burned in her honor and we looked upon her picture in the small wooden frame, now we too could now take a bit of comfort in the knowledge that we played our own small part of UHCL history.

Located inside the Cappuccino Bono, we listened to her words performed and the words we had written for our own performances.  With our voices, which ranged from novice poets to the recently published poet Jonathon Moody, we celebrated her in our own written joys and scribbled frustrations.  We were explorative, passionate, enthusiastic, and transformative. We tried to be challenging and human. We too wanted to be far more than unexpected.

It was a most unexpected vigil, but that was the nature of Adrienne Rich and the reality of UHCL. That was and hopefully will continue to be the UHCL Open Mic Night.

Since the fall of 2008, the UHCL Open Mic Night has and continues to be a constant on campus. The result of a partnership between Dr. Shreerekha Subramanian, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Dr. John Gorman, Professor of Literature and Poetry, with support from Dr. Arch Erich, Professor of Social Work, there is no charge to attend and it is open to both students and the public. All student participation is strongly encouraged and Students can MC events. Located inside the Cappuccino Bono, Open Mic Night will return this Fall 2012. For specific dates and times, please check the UHCL website.

Meryl Bazaman
Humanities Graduate Student