Fisk University Ambassador Update 2.26.23

This past week, I met with my psychology professor and expressed my concerns about people not registering for the poetry competition that will be happening on February 27th from 7-9 pm in the Multipurpose room at Fisk University. Through this conversation, she suggested that I host a poetry workshop for those who have trouble writing poetry. So, given that student elections were coming up soon, I knew that I could not requisition a space for this workshop. However, I talked to Dr.Rogers (Professor of Literature and Honors Program) and she gave me permission to use the honors building for this workshop. Once I was given the opportunity, I created the workshop flyer and began promoting it on Instagram and GroupMe which is one of the primary ways to communicate with Fisk students. I was excited because people have expressed to me that they would love to register for my event, but they have not written poetry before. As I am planning this event, I talked with two student poets (Chazlyn Crawford) and (Monique Brooks) who agreed to assist me at this event.

On February 21st from 7-8 in the Honors building, I hosted my first poetry workshop. As an incentive, I provided refreshments for those who attended. However, only one student showed up to the workshop wanting to learn how to write poetry. I explained to our guest that there is no proper way to write poetry and that it just comes out of what you want to write about. Through this, we also provided her with an example that should base her poem in order to submit her piece before the deadline which was Friday, February 24 at 11:59 pm. Although I did not have a lot of people attend this event it did create a lot of interest in registering for this event with one of the incentives of winning a cash prize. Additionally, through this week I have been actively emailing and posting the poetry contest to gain more registrants which I saw an increase from 2 fully registered students to 7 fully registered in the span of a couple of days.

Lastly, through the promotion of this workshop, I learned how much time and effort it takes to properly host a workshop of any kind and that if I was to host a workshop I need have planned this in advance. I also, learned how much time and energy it takes to host a contest of this magnitude by making sure that my collaborators and I are all promoting the contest to the best of our ability to receive a great turnout. As my event approaches, I am hoping for an entertaining and competitive poetry contest where history is the sole focus of the poem.