Five notable alumni poets lounge casually about railings in the Harris Center, greeting a herd of current and previous Parker students, parents, and faculty as they swarm through the set of double doors. The buzz dwindles as the poets take their seats, circling around a table piled with stacks of colorful chapbooks, gazing into a congested room of familiar faces.

At 7 p.m. on Monday, March 26, after a day of reacclimating to their Alma Mater—engaging in question and answer sessions and dialogue with students, and presenting at Morning Exercise—the poets came prepared to read select poems and immerse themselves in a discussion led by Senior Zoe Laris-Djokovic on the topic of “What it means to be a poet in 2019.”

Callie Siskel ‘04 commenced the poetry reading with poems from her chapbook entitled “Arctic Revival,” which was selected in 2014 for the Poetry Society of America’s coveted Chapbook Fellowship. Siskel currently resides in Baltimore, teaching creative writing at John Hopkins University, where she also earned her MFA in poetry in 2013. In her time at Parker, Siskel was a student in English Teacher Bonnie Seebold’s Fiction and Poetry classes. “I don’t have Parker in my poems literally, but I know that I wouldn’t be a poet if I hadn’t gone here,” Siskel said. “Parker is in all of my poems, not in a physical space, but it’s in asking questions about the world, as Parker students are always encouraged to do.”

After a brief introduction from English teacher and Poetry Club Faculty Advisor Matt Laufer, Julian Randall approached the makeshift podium. “It’s good to be back. It’s good to be home,” Randall said. Randall is a queer black poet currently living in Mississippi, and is a candidate for his MFA in poetry at Ole Miss. Although Randall is younger than other visiting poets, he has nonetheless been praised for his tremendous accomplishments, having been the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and the winner of the 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Prize for his first book, “Refuse.” According to Laufer, Randall’s poetry was able to resonate with students “across the board.” “He writes in a vernacular that is very contemporary and very familiar to students,” Laufer said, “For example, When he writes in a way that is meant to sound like a Kendrick Lamar song, it’s inviting and exciting.”

When asked by Laris-Djokovic what entails the role of the poet, Grady Chambers ‘06 reached across the table to grab the base of the microphone, “I hope that the poems can carry those who are ignorant and divorced from the political climate they were written in,” Grady said, “Poetry does not give you an obligation to write about what’s going on in the world. It’s about being a human, and how you interact with your community.” Facing the crowd, Chambers read a single poem entitled “Stopping the War.” Chambers is the author of “North American Stadiums,” which was selected as the winner of the inaugural Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. “I think Grady Chambers and Elise Paschen were certainly popular among my Juniors, in the way they write about Chicago history and American history, more broadly,” Laufer said, “I think ‘Stopping the war’ felt, in certain ways very American. I also think ‘Wi’-gi’-e,’ Elise Paschen’s poem which engages with the terrible story about Osage Headrights particularly resonated with students.”

Elise Paschen ‘77 is an accomplished poet and Parker parent of two, who started off her career writing poetry in second grade. Paschen is the author of Bestiary, Infidelities, Houses: Coasts, and most recently, The Nightlife, from which she read at the podium after Randall. “I’ve always felt that poems have the power to change the way you see the world,” Paschen said. “My first Chapbook came out in 1985, so I can sort of see the whole spectrum of things. In the 90s, it was amazing this renaissance of poetry and the multiplicity of voices. Although, I do feel like there has been a dramatic change in the landscape, given the last couple of years, and given our political situation.”

After spiralling into a debate about whether poems should need to reflect the political or social climate of the time period in which it was written, Sophie Grimes ‘03 offered a definitive “no.” “I draw inspiration from weird, medieval books,” Grimes said. “I hate writing about the now, because I am always in the now. Language is an artifact, and if you can transcend the “now,” you can revisit and re-explore the past.” Grimes has an MFA from Boston University, and is the poet behind the Chapbook “City Structures,” from which she selected poems to read from for the evening of poetry at Parker.

Throughout their day at Parker, the poets were invited to a lunch meeting with the poetry club and the slam poetry club, in which student poets learned how to engage in the poetry community, were introduced to new writing techniques, and found out which books the poets were currently reading. “For me, meeting the poets affirms that poetry is a chill process, but it also requires a lot of thought and time. There’s a lot to it,” Laris-Djokovic said. “If you’re published, a reader has to understand what you’re trying to say, or at least, experience your poem in their own way.”

According to both Laris-Djokovic and Laufer, the meeting was primarily a question and answer session—with the visiting poets both answering and asking questions. “The poets had lots of questions for the students,” Laufer said, “they were curious about to what extent is poetry thriving at Parker, and they were interested about what the poetry club did, how they spent their time, how often they met, and likewise with Slam Poetry.”

“Yes I think it is,” Laufer said when asked whether he thought poetry was thriving at Parker. “This program alone—I don’t know that it’s singular in the country, but it’s gotta be close, given not just the commitment the school has shown to poets every year, but the quality and caliber we have gotten.” Contrary to Laufer, Laris-Djokovic believes that the visiting poets highlighted the way in which Parker has removed itself from poetry overtime.  “I don’t think Parker really prioritizes poetry,” Laris-Djokovic said. “When the poets were talking, they were talking about about these courses at Parker that inspired them to become poets that just don’t exist anymore. I’m in the poetry elective, obviously, but that’s the only distinctly poetry offered, and I think there should be more.”

“What was interesting to me was how much emphasis the poets put on the idea that poetry is a manipulation of words that you like,” Laris-Djokovic said. “You use language to express things that you couldn’t express otherwise.”