Spoken word events are scary. The spoken word event on the night of Jan. 22, however, was significantly less scary because it took place within our own Paterson Hall, and it was free.
A YouTube video of George Carlin, projected at the front of the room, welcomed various poets and poetry lovers to their seats. A tasteful tapestry adorned the podium, and “NO H8 SPEECH” was one of the rules outlined on the classroom whiteboard. The people sitting in the chairs of the regal 303 Paterson Hall were mostly humanities students. The unending stream of clever jokes and references exchanged all night made two things very evident: One, the students of the humanities department are undeniably intelligent. Two, these people love each other. The humanities department has a sense of community that I’ve not yet seen in a department at Carleton. This was made clear when the organization that embodies that community, called “North,” puts on a spoken word night.
Many things come to mind when you think of the word north. North can be a place that is cold, a direction, or the name of a famous toddler who definitely owns more designer clothing than you will ever own in your entire life. For the Carleton students of the humanities department, North means everything.
“[North is] the literary arts journal published every year by the college of the humanities students. It’s really just a place for people’s creativity to blossom,” Isabel McMurray, the self-described “Queen” of North, said.
McMurray is in her fourth year of her studies at Carleton, so with a heavy but full heart, she told me this year’s issue of North will be the last she’s involved with. The deadline to apply to this year’s issue has been extended to Feb. 22, and submissions are open to humanities students and welcomed by email.
“What I love about North is that opening everyone’s emails—it’s so intimate,” McMurray said. “And every email is like, ‘Hey, here’s my painting, here’s my poem. If you don’t have room for it, if you don’t like it, that’s fine.’ But it’s not fine. Everyone just wants to share, and that’s why I love it so much. People have this opportunity to express themselves in ways they wouldn’t otherwise express.”
This freeness of expression came through in North’s spoken word night. The full spectrum of emotions was represented, in solemn pieces such as the one by Graeme O’Farrell that illustrated the conversation between a father and his six-year-old son about death, to Shannon Lee’s moving rendition of Nicki Minaj’s part in “Monster.” Both were applauded with enthusiastic snaps.
Especially nervous performers were urged on with cries of support, extended arms, encouragement, and more snaps. O’Farrell provided a sign-up book for his idea for a new club, the Carleton Dead Poet’s Society, that got enough supporters by the end of the night for him to go ahead with looking in to making it a reality.
McMurray puts the magic of the department this way: “My friend’s little brother—who’s not in humanities—described it this way: hums is all the weird kids at your high school, but they’re all together now . . . It’s a lot of people, who have always been used to being the different one, and now we’re all different together.”
