CHANCE hosts Poets Nite

By Andrew Duff

Tonight is the third-annual Poets Nite, being held at the Stadium Club, 1311 W. Lincoln Highway, which will showcase 12 to 13 poets during a three-hour show.

Poets Nite slowly has had an increase in audience size each year, mostly through word of mouth.

Sponsored by the CHANCE program and the Peer Mentoring Program, the night is mainly the brain child of Carla Carr, a senior art major who also has been the PMP coordinator for the last three years.

“I’m an artist. I’ve always been drawn to things like this,” Carr said. “PMP wasn’t doing these things before I arrived.”

The CHANCE program, designed to help students who cannot fulfill the typical requirements enter NIU, works hand in hand with PMP, which pairs freshmen with upperclassmen mentors with the same majors and helps them around campus. Though this is the third year that Carr has held something like Poets Nite, the performers have changed dramatically each year.

“The first year we were dealing with strictly poets, word art. Second year, more hip-hop and musicians,” Carr said. “This year we have a nice mixture, bands, poetry and even acoustic guitar.”

Though Poets Nite is free for anyone to attend, Carr asks that people bring in canned goods, which will be donated to the Salvation Army and Hope Haven.

“Poets Nite is a platform for them to express themselves,” Carr said.

The future of Poets Nite, however, remains in jeopardy. This is Carr’s last year, and she doesn’t know if anyone will continue to organize it.

“I hope that someone will, and I really think that students have come to expect it and will demand it,” Carr said.