What Words Mean

What Words Mean

   I was recently lucky enough to attend the English Honors Society’s ( Sigma Tau Delta ) event, “Open Mic Night”. The purpose of the event was primarily to warm up students to the idea of presenting before others here on our UT Tyler campus. We were lucky to get a good number of students who felt comfortable presenting, but we were also lucky to get a very good turnout for the event.


    What I got to experience was a series of extremely powerful readings from across a wide range of content spectrums,  from comedic, tragic, insightful, to the meditative. Some even managed to blend these elements together.

   While I do not have the express permission of any of the artists who spoke to properly quote or comment on their work directly, one of the noticeable elements was the heart that every speaker brought to their presentation. It was a really unique thing to get to see and I hope we get to do a similar event next year!

   One of the things I can comment on is the nature of what events like “Open Mic Night” mean for the University and for our student body: it is a chance to be heard. While our university has faculty who are very open to supporting student endeavors, the students themselves often do not pick up this torch and run with it! We, as students, have a responsibility to empower our own educations.

   What this means, for English majors anyway, is that we have a responsibility to set down our words, but then we need people to hear them. Regardless of if/if not people understand, they must first hear. We often get choked up, or we lose our focus before a crowd; students are not perfect and we’ll mess up. Still, getting started on delivering before crows now will help everyone in the future.

   I got flustered, nervous, forgot lines, had to skip sections of my reading and I even admit to amending one section completely for the sake of time … but it was worth it to be able to have accomplished getting up in public, speaking, and being heard. Regardless of how words look on paper, they're meant to be turned into sounds that touch the hearts and minds of others.