By Margot Dragos
On March 20, Brooklyn College (BC) students brought their creativity and enthusiasm to the Woody Tanger Auditorium. The Spring Open Mic, hosted by The Junction, the literary and art magazine at BC, allowed students to showcase their work on stage and gave them an opportunity to perform to an audience of their supportive peers.
“We had to reschedule a few times to get the library because so much stuff happens in here,” Damien Nieswand, treasurer and intern for The Junction, told The Vanguard. The event was initially meant to happen in February, but was postponed due to scheduling conflicts with other events happening in the library.
Nieswand and other interns for The Junction were responsible for running the open mic. They took turns announcing each performer and their piece, with many like Nieswand performing themselves.
When asked what went into putting this event together, Nieswand explained that he and the other interns put up posters, created blog posts, and made announcements in their classes.
“It’s a lot of networking, it takes a village,” he explained.
This strategy worked, as the auditorium was filled with students and professors. While a large portion of the audience consisted of performers, many attendees simply came to watch and support the event.
“It was such a rich experience,” Katie Williams, an audience member and professor in the BC English department, told The Vanguard. “I think it’s amazing seeing students both being able to share their work, particularly what’s stirring them in their daily life, their lived experiences, and everything that’s going on in the world right now, and having a platform to express that.”
Performances varied in theme and approach. Certain works tackled personal experiences with love and loss while others discussed the implications of worldwide issues prevalent today. Students performed poems, short fictitious works, songs, a scene from a play, and even a rap. Some performances were somber, while others were more comedic in tone.
Like the rest of the audience, Williams frequently applauded and cheered for each performer.
“It was really beautiful seeing people come out and support one another,” Williams continued. “Seeing people’s reactions in the audience, it felt very convivial and just like a real space of support.”
Wali Mohammed, a creative writing major and former intern for The Junction, also performed at the event. He read his poem, “About Hair,” which discussed how people change the ways they physically express themselves when they go through a painful experience. He’s been performing at The Junction’s open mic events since 2022.
“You gain a community,” Mohammed explained. “You get an audience to share your work with and you’re able to get over stage fright because that’s something that people struggle with a lot and just coming here every semester has helped them get over it a lot.”
Nieswand had a similar outlook on what he hopes students take away from the open mics.
“I think it’s a really good way for people who are performing to build their confidence as performers to get to be vulnerable in a space that is safe to be vulnerable in,” Nieswand explained. “It takes a lot to get up there and share something that you made, like a piece of yourself with the world. So I just want it to be a place where people feel safe to do that and it’s a positive experience so they feel more like they can attend in the future and it’s less scary.”
However, Nieswand doesn’t think performers are the only ones who benefit from attending The Junction’s open mics. He believes the audience can benefit from seeing how writing isn’t exclusively for household names.
“I think it’s really easy to think of poetry as inaccessible or thinking of it only in terms of the established canon, like ‘Oh, well poetry is just something that Keats does’ […] or for writing creatively that’s Shakespeare and Joyce Carol Oates,” Nieswand explained. “Yeah, it is those people, but it’s also the students around you, and a lot of these works are already very sophisticated, just really incredible works.”
Since 1998, The Junction has hosted an open mic each semester. Nieswand is hopeful that this tradition will continue, as this is his last semester as an intern.
“There’s always room for everybody. Even if you’re not a performer, there’s more than enough room for you in the audience and I just really recommend it to everyone,” Nieswand said. “It’s such a great way to find a community of people that support you and that make things that you feel really passionate about.”
Students interested in upcoming events from The Junction can find them on their Instagram, @thejunctionbc