It's In Our Nature: Insight - 25 February 2023

Featuring poets of all experience levels, our "It's in Our Nature" events bring writers together to share their small curiosities, sweeping odes, or any piece of environmental writing in between. By writing we can capture the imagery of our mind’s eye, looking inward to draw emotion, beauty, and truth from the outside world. 

​The theme of our event this year was “Insight.” Every day our minds sift through a sea of thoughts and sensory impressions, casting the world around us in vivid shades of feeling only we can experience. What marvels exist only within our own heads! We asked poets to share the beautiful singularity of their mind’s eye with us on February 25th.

​Sole sublimity
Outside insights from within
As a poem, shared

In room 126 in Memorial Library and through the magic of Zoom, nearly 40 people gathered to share in poetry at the 4th Annual "It's in Our Nature" Poetry open mic event on February 25th. Our 12 presenters this year included students (some first-time poetry presenters!), Puschart Prize nominated poets, UW Madison faculty, and writers from around the Madison community. 

This was the first time we had hosted this event in person since the original "It's in Our Nature" event started by Lillian Tong and Olympia Mathiaparanam in 2020 in the Steenbock Biocommons. Despite a few expected technical hitches, the event's hybrid format worked well and allowed folks from all over Wisconsin and beyond to participate while still fostering the feeling only an in-person open mic can create. 

2023 event poster designed by Will Vuyk

The Madison Journal of Literary Criticism joined us this year to co-host the event, and will be publishing a two page spread on the Friends, the Preserve, and featuring poems from the event. I look forward to working with them further as we continue to expand the "It's in Our Nature" poetry audio trail initiative. 

Our 2021 trail can be found here and our unfinished 2022 trail can be found here.

Stay tuned for more soon on our updated 2023 audio trail!

Report by Will Vuyk, with photos from Paul Noeldner.