But after seeing something that was posted on a DSU confessions page, I ended up calling my mother to tell her about it. And yes, I talk to my mom because she always knows the right thing to say and she cheered me up. Here's a screenshot of the "anonymous" post:
First off, an open mic is not a competition. A competition would imply that people were competing for prizes and for first place. It was an open mic where people could share.
Secondly, we did treat him with respect but he was onstage for 30 minutes talking and we needed to give others who were still in line a chance to read. It was not fair to those who had yet to perform. If any of the other performers had gone too long, we would have done the same thing. We watched the time on all the performers. Never once did we treat him with disrespect, I had to go up and ask him to wrap it up at the 20 minute mark to which he said he was almost done. But 6 minutes later, he wasn't done yet and by that time we needed to move on no matter how close he was to being done with the story. He was very brave in letting people know that he had a stutter and people had made fun of him in high school. It was very brave to stand up in front of people he didn't know and share a personal story. I felt horrible for having to do so but other people still needed to perform. By the way, the drawing we had for all those who performed to get a chance to win a Pizza Ranch gift card? He was one of the winners.
And I felt bad for people who got their poems judged and some people left before hearing the whole thing. We did not censor any of the content, and I don't understand how people can be upset about a poem about violence and assume that all poetry is that way. Plus, this campus has had other events not hosted by the English Club where that event used worse language than that poem did. There was a poem about domestic violence where it started out with a beating and it was harsh, but in the end of the poem it talked about how the behavior was wrong. People who left before the end of it have no right to comment on it. If you would have seen the audiences faces, we were just as shocked by the violence but we stayed till the end to hear him say how wrong it was. Poetry is meant to be provocative, and the domestic violence one was. It brought attention to what actually happens and the performer did a great job.
The post made me feel horrible but you know what? The person who wrote this "anonymous" post is a small person because you don't understand how long it took my advisor to get me to go up in front of people to tell him he needed to wrap it up. That I was almost in tears of embarrassment in doing so. But I have nothing to feel ashamed of or sorry for. I had to make sure that other people got a chance to perform.
I will not allow a small-minded person to make me feel horrible. The Open Mic night was a success and from now on we will have a time limit. I was glad I presented my poem and I'm glad that people were brave and shared their songs, stories, and poetry.
