This story has been updated to reflect the spelling and definition of a pantoum.
A podium and a mic take the center of the Historic Thomas Center’s golden atrium. As the sun beams down, poets pour their souls to a nurturing audience. The room is filled with people buzzing to perform for their community, stanza by stanza.
At the 13th annual Artspeaks: Bringing Poetry & People Together, a free event in downtown Gainesville, poets expressed themselves through their talent. No matter the experience level, anyone can perform. This year, about 30 people took the stage.
Audience members snapped their fingers when a line of poetry resonated with them, encouraging the performers to go on. Some poets raised their voices. Some cried.
Peyton Stanley, 18, shared her poetry publicly for the first time. She started “talking to the paper” when her first relationship ended, she said, and she found solace in putting her feelings somewhere.
She didn’t originally plan to speak at the event, but her friends encouraged her to do so.
“All these people come together, and they each have their own stories to tell,” Stanley said. “Some of them I don't relate to, and I know they don't relate to mine. It's great to bring everybody together in one space to share.”
That’s exactly what Artspeaks founder E. Stanley Richardson hoped to create.
The 63-year-old founded nonprofit Artspeaks in 2012 after attending a poetry jam at the Gainesville Civic Media Center, which still takes place every Thursday night. He is also Alachua County’s inaugural poet laureate, an honor he earned in 2020.
Within the poetry community, he noticed distinct groups: queer poets, feminist poets and black revolutionary poets, for example, he said.
“Wouldn't it be great to get all these different voices together under one roof just for a celebration of poetry?” he remembers asking himself.
Richardson wanted to foster a place where people could further discover themselves — just like he did.
Richardson didn’t always know he was a poet. Raised in Alachua, he went on to get a football scholarship at UF. He said he always loved to act and write songs in private, but he didn’t realize he could pursue the passion as a career until later in life.
That changed when his daughter performed in a play at the Acrosstown Repertory Theater, and he ended up playing her father. There, he met his wife, Carol Velasquez Richardson, who was the managing director.
Velasquez Richardson read his writing and watched him perform, and she told him he was an artist. When he didn’t believe her, she held his hand and had him stand in front of a mirror and tell himself he is an artist, he said. After that, he started believing her.
Other Artspeaks performers, like 54-year-old Jenna Nishida, have considered themselves poets for their entire lives. Nishida started performing at the weekly poetry jam at the Civic Media Center and then got involved at Artspeaks five years ago. Now, she returns every year to perform and help during the event.
“Stan, he wants every voice to be heard, and so even if somebody comes in the last minute, he makes space,” Nishida said. “He really values other people's voices, so it's a great event that way.”
This year, she wrote a pantoum, a poem that has repeating lines, with two lines from the first stanza completing the final stanza and conveying the poem's message. She and her reading partner received a standing ovation.
Many performers brought original poems about the current state of the political world, personal struggles, reflections on the past and how to keep moving into the future.
One UF alumnus, 27-year-old Essence Thomas, started writing poetry in middle school following her English teachers’ encouragement. She always found writing as her strong suit, where she felt safe to share her feelings, Thomas added.
Thomas got involved in Artspeaks in 2021 following an invitation from Richardson. Now, she writes with hip-hop influences, merging poetry, dance and hand movements to bring her words to life.
“It’s a space for expression,” Richardson said of Artspeaks. “A place where people can come express themselves through all the poetry, spoken-word, storytelling.”
Contact Teia Williams at twilliams@alligator.org Follow her on X @teia_williams
Teia is a general assignment reporter for Metro. She is also a second semester journalism transfer student from Daytona State College and served as Editor-in-Chief for In Motion, DSC's student newspaper. When she's not writing, Teia can be found reading, going to concerts, at the beach and talking about her favorite artists.
