Muses Spring Coffeehouse open mic night
While students chatted away in the noise of GQ, those just across the way sat in attentive quietness with their elbows resting on their knees, eyes turned up towards the open mic placed in front of the fireplace by Java Joe’s.
Muses, the College’s Literary Art Magazine, held their annual spring Coffeehouse on Thursday, Feb. 16, where students shared their works at an open mic.
About thirty students crowded around the microphones and piano, situated in front of the fireplace with all the chairs and couches turned inward to face them. On the mantel were propped old copies of the Muses magazine, dating 2015 and 2010, which were draped with a strand of twinkling lights.
Students who went up to the mic shared mostly their own poems, with the occasional instrument joining someone’s voice. Listeners were treated to works which ranged in topic from war to high school crushes, from college stress to finding faith to even a dramatic-turned-comic reading of an article from The Odyssey. Each reading was greeted with warm applause from the listeners. The stories shared even captured some passerby’s attention as they walked through the main doors of Seegers. At one point a member of Muhlenberg’s custodial staff even paused in emptying the garbage cans to listen to a student.
While three of the Muses staff members sat at the table on the edge of the space, urging passersby and listeners alike to sign up for a turn at the mic, Editor-in-Chief Kate O’Donoghue ‘17 introduced each performer. This particular night was special to O’Donoghue, since, as a graduating senior, this was her last coffeehouse.
O’Donoghue read multiple works, most often during one of the few lulls over the course of the two and a half hours the mic was open. She even shared the poem she read at her first coffeehouse, back when she was a freshman, a poem titled “Yellow.”
“To think back on what I was like as a freshman and how nervous I was and really intimidated by a lot of people,” said O’Donoghue, “and to recognize that person inside myself and hear her stand up my senior year and read the poem that she read at her first coffeehouse at her last coffeehouse is just…I’m getting a little choked up right now because it absolutely meant a lot to me.”
A few other of the Muses editors joined in as well, sharing their works or those of others. With a little encouragement from O’Donoghue, Christa Maxwell ‘17, a member of Muses Public Relations, who was also celebrating her last coffeehouse, played the piano and sang “The Great Escape” by Patrick Watson.
“I felt very nostalgic in realizing this was my last coffeehouse,” said Maxwell, “but I was also so impressed and energized by all of the awesome performers we had throughout the night. I was just happy to have been a part of it!”
Maxwell was one of a handful students who gave a musical performance as opposed to reading poems. Another student played the guitar and sang Phillip Phillip’s “Gone Gone Gone,” while Julia Real ‘19, played her ukulele and sang a song she’d written herself.
Real explained that she had originally written another song and had intended to perform it, but she found an older song easier to memorize, and she said she could relate to it again.
O’Donoghue said this open sharing is what she loves the most about these events.
“It’s not just an opportunity to toot your own horn. It’s an opportunity to share that with others and to have the experience of being shared with,” said O’Donoghue. “Even people who just kind of sit and listen, they are there to listen openly and empathetically.”
As for the listeners, they come from all corners of campus, according to O’Donoghue.
“[The Muses community] ranges from people who are neuroscience majors to theatre majors to English majors to art history majors, all across the campus, who come together to participate in art-making together,” said O’Donoghue. “And art-making goes both ways, speaking the art or sharing the art and I think that kind of relationship of speaker and listener goes both ways and is very inherent to who we are as a community.”
Muses’ next open mic will be co-sponsored by Active Minds and held in the galleria of the Baker Center for the Arts on Mar. 16. The theme of the night will be art’s relation to mental health, although all are welcome. The 2017 edition of Muses will be out in the beginning of May, which will be accompanied with a release party in the CA.
Photos courtesy of Haris Bhatti