The Las Cruces community was invited to share poetry at Desert Voices Open Mic Poetry Night, hosted at Grounded on April 2.
The event is held by Desert Voices once a month, usually every first Thursday, with the intent to foster community and poetry. Throughout the night, participants took turns to read, creating a quiet and attentive atmosphere as audience members listened to each performance.
The topics, which ranged from themes of heavy loss to romantic love, highlighted the wide range of personal experiences within the community. Readers were also able to present poems they did not write, but enjoyed and wanted to share anyways, adding to the diversity of voices at the event.
One participant, Oliver Viruet, shared a poem about their experience of becoming a teenager.
“[My poem] is a piece about my childhood, my transition into kind of teenhood and the emotional turmoil of that from the perspective of a plush toy that I’ve had,” Viruet said.
For some, like Jenna Rosa Munez, reading and reciting poetry was a way to process difficult emotions and experiences.
“For me, [I wrote] because I stopped being friends with someone,” Munez said. “So… writing about it helped me cope with the fact that they’re not in my life anymore.”
Moments like these reflected the deeper purpose of the event, as writers used poetry not only to express themselves but also to connect with others who may relate to their experiences. Raquel Madrigal said this connection helped create a tight-knit community for both regulars and newcomers.
While many attendees are regulars, each event usually has a couple of newcomers read for the first time. The mix of familiar and new voices helps maintain a sense of both comfort and growth within the space.
Another participant, Elise Torres, said poems are a more accessible medium for writers as opposed to other mediums, which can be longer and more time-consuming.
“I had been into creative writing,” Torres said. “But I decided to write more poems about myself and my experience just so that I could get those feelings out.”
As the night continued, each reading contributed to an atmosphere of shared understanding among attendees, with audience members responding with applause and conversation amongst one another about each poem; reflecting the supportive nature of the event and community members. Information about their future events can be found on their Instagram.
Read the Spanish translation of this article here.
