Upper Bucks campus held a Pretzel and Poetry event on April 26. It was an open mic day where students shared poems, short stories and more.
The event was held from 12:30 till 1:30 in the North building of Students Commons.  There were about 40 people attending where over 15 students presented poems, short stories, lyrics and sang.
The event also had a spread of two tables filled with free pretzel bites and an assortment of dips for the attendees to enjoy.
The event was orchestrated by “Write Now,” Cheryl Baldi a Language & Literature professor at Upper Bucks coordinated the event.
The event was originally planned for one of Cheryl’s classes which they had to read an original or a piece that was influential to them to the crowd.
More than half the speakers were other students who wanted to just participate in this event.
Two of the Students, Jennilee Best a math major and Arielle Reisser a psychology major sang along to the song “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey.  The whole crowd joined in clapping and swaying along to their duet.
The two students claimed to be nervous before they went up, but they felt at ease when the crowd joined in with their off beat clapping.
One of the students the students who read an original piece was James Borelli. James read an original piece titled, “Hanging out with the Jones”.
The poems discussed the deviation if social norms that this family “the Jones” had.  James explained in the opening how he wrote this piece specifically for the event.
After the event, James talked to Cheryl about his piece. Cheryl said, “It’s so nice to see you preform your you own piece, and I really appreciate the participation.”
Two of the students did the same piece back to back of readings of the Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby.” The first student Billy explained how the song and the band were influential growing up.  The second student Ray sang an acoustic version of the song to close up the event.
There were several student s who read works that consisted of children’s books, poems and short lyrical pieces.
All and all it was a great opportunity for students to get up and share their original works or pieces that influenced them in some way. The upper Bucks campus plans on making this an annual event.