In the 1920s a young poet named Langston Hughes worked as a busboy at a restaurant in the bustling U Street district of Washington, D.C. One evening, Hughes, while busing the table of celebrated-American poet Vachel Lindsay, Hughes slipped some of his poems onto his customer’s table. Lindsay liked what he saw, and, long story short, Langston Hughes became one of the most celebrated poets in American history.

Since, poetry in America, and in Washington, D.C., has changed dramatically. From downtown to the Hilltop, poetry is one of the foremost artistic influences on the city and the world around us. Busboys and Poets is a crowning example of the District’s thriving spoken word and poetry scene. Named in honor of Hughes, the bookstore/restaurant is at the center of a poetic culture invigorated by politics and race.

At open-mic nights each Tuesday, a wide range of performers show up to read their mostly original poetry and essays — this week, participants included middle-aged men in suits, a teenage boys wearing an Allen Iverson jerseys, and a young woman donning a shaved head and a miniskirt.

“When you come to open mic, understand this is a community to share ideas and find fellowship,” said poet-in-residence Derrick Weston Brown. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Busboys and Poets is also a great place for artists to network and promote their craft. Open mic is but one of many events held at Busboys and Poets.

A monthly poetry council brings together leading poets from different sections of D.C., focusing more on traditional styles of poetry and less on spoken word. Still, the Tuesday night open mic is the heart of the operation. Portraits of the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. preside over the stage in the Langston Room, and underneath the portraits are written the words “waiting, wishing, dreaming.”

Over the course of the evening, 17 poets and one featured artist perform, each reading two pieces. For Denise Morris, a longtime writer but first-time performer at Busboys, the transition from page to stage is natural.

She says that she is “motivated by everything, but inspired by listening” and that her dream is to “have [her] work acted out in the limelight, whether it’s Broadway or a community center.” She describes the prose poem that she read, “Some Perspective Senses,” as “part scientific, part romantic.”

Dennis Nelson, author of his self-published book The Sun Still Shines, says that his work reflects on themes including religion, politics, love and psychological struggles. Others speak on themes that relate to the various oppressions and struggles they have faced because of race, gender, and sexual orientation, among other issues.

The performances derive much of their strength from austerity. Rather than relying on theatrical stereotypes associated with spoken word, the readings consist of people, standing on a stage with a microphone, simply reading the words that they wrote.

Couplets on Campus While poetry took center stage at Busboys this week, a group of students and faculty are making sure it holds a place on the Hilltop. The art may occupy a relatively small niche here on Georgetown’s campus, but if English professor David Gewanter has anything to do about it, it won’t die out. He said that his classes, both on theory and writing, along with programs such as the Lannan Fellows, seek to revive poetry on the Hilltop.

“Poetry is a long and beautiful song that is drowning,” he said. “A poem is an emotionally compelling document that gives voice and presence. Very few things carry such power,” Gewanter said. But Gewanter added that it is difficult for many students to put their thoughts into language.

Ricky Barrios (COL ’09), a student in Gewanter’s writing workshop, wants to be a writer but hated poetry when he first came to Georgetown. After trying unsuccessfully to write over the summer (he said it was difficult to write without deadlines and word limits), he has embraced Gewanter’s poetry writing class, saying it has given him the structure to write more freely.

An environment where others can read, discuss and critique others’ work is important as well, Gewanter said. After all, writing is one thing, but taking the extra step to edit, alter and improve one’s work is, as Gewanter said, “a whole different ballgame.” Celebrating Diversity Through Verse Echoing the themes of civil rights and social justice found at Busboys and Poets, Georgetown is branching out into the realm of spoken word with the installation of The Black Atlantic Project on the first floor of the Davis Performing Arts Center.

The project is a collection of seven tracks from seven contemporary black artists from the Atlantic rim, which students can listen to via headphones. To create the project, each of the sevens artists responded to the preceding piece, creating what Gewanter called a “chain song.” Modern technology, Gewanter said, gives artists a chance to create a single song from a chorus of voices, reflecting on the cruel realties of the slave trade and the struggles afterwards. Downstairs from Black Atlantic, in the lower lobby of Davis, Josh DeMinter (COL ’08), the student coordinator of The Black Atlantic Project, is spearheading another venture.

The project, Echoes, is a collection of collaborative poems reacting to the Black Atlantic Project tracks to create a composite of poetry written by Georgetown students.

Echoes was developed after Gewanter asked students in his class to create a work that imitated the “chain song” created in the Black Atlantic Project exhibit. Sarah Millan (COL ’09), a student in the class, said that the experience was “a really unique way to immediately respond to a fellow artist and a new way to look at poetry.”

“It will help bring poetry into the modern era and connect to a younger generation,” Millan added. The poems will also be posted on the Internet, in an effort to have poetry reach as broad an audience as possible. “My passion is to get poetry into a public space and create an international arts conversation between people who’ve never met,” Gewanter said. Community is especially important to The Fire This Time, Georgetown’s self-proclaimed minority student newspaper, which published a poetry issue in Winter 2006. Yamiche Alcindor (COL ’09), editor in chief of the paper, said she considers black poetry “a vibrant way to get [minority] voices heard.”

“I think that history shows that black poets have been writing for forever about the struggles that face the black community,” she said. “I feel like there are black poets on campus that spread messages that resonate with everyone.”