Sofia Rositani – Reporter
There was poetry, short stories and an open mic at the Folio Reading on Thursday, Feb. 27. The event highlights Folios first reading of the semester.
According to President of Folio Natalie Rogers, Folio started back in the 1920s at Southern. The magazine was formerly an outlet for men who returned from World War I in 1918 to talk about their trauma from the war.
Today it is now an undergraduate run art and literary magazine on Southern’s campus that features the works of undergraduates in it. There can be work such as poetry, art and short stories. The magazine comes out once a year.
During the event, one student read their pieces to those who attended. After the guest speakers read their works there was a break and then an open mic for those who wanted to read their own work.
“This is the first event of the semester. It’s just a standard reading of featured artists doing poetry and fiction,” Rogers said, “and then we always just open it up to open mic at the end of the night where anyone can share their work.”
The event’s three featured artists were Genevieve Jaser, Steff Sirois and Katie Doyle. Jaser said she has been writing poetry since sixth grade and has done a poetry reading for Folio before, read three of her poems. One of them was called “Wet Wings.” It told about an acquaintance from high school who tried to kill herself last month.
Jaser said she realized the cliché in which people say her friend “seemed like she would never do that,” or wondered how it could have happened, which led her to write the piece.
“Like it slips through peoples fingers and it slipped through the girl’s fingers,” she said, “and I felt so sad and so confused I put her in the terms of the moth and I wrote a poem basically addressing her as the moth and saying find your peace.”
Jaser said she writes most of her work while she is emotional, because while writing she believes that “a lot of emotion can be channeled into less emotional things.” She said that it feels really good to go up and read one of her poems because it is something that she is proud of, and reading it out loud to people makes it easier for her to read out loud in front of attendees.
Doyle was a featured reader for Folio during the event. Some of the poems she wrote were called “Backseat,” “Tarot Table” and “Life on the Lake.”
“I love that everyone has a lot of different ideas, and they make the events really fun, and I love to hear peoples work,” she said.
English major, Sophia Aneto, a junior said she has been coming to Folio readings since her freshman year at Southern. She said she enjoys coming to these readings because she likes to support Folio and the English department, and she likes to see what people have written and see the art that was done.
“[Eighth grade was] when I started writing poems, and stuff, terrible awful poems but hey it was a start,” she said. “I have been interested in creative writing since then, I came to school to pursue an English major, and then I found out there is a creative writing reading, ‘Oh God I got to be there.’”
Photo Credit: Roma Rositani
