MARQUETTE — Despite misconceptions, poetry is not only rhyming words written by historical figures long past — poetry is here and now, even at Northern Michigan University.

Michigan Poet Laureate Nandi Comer and Upper Peninsula Poet Laureate Dr. Beverly Matherne participated in a conversation about building understanding through poetry on Thursday at NMU’s Northern Center.

This panel, moderated by Northern’s assistant vice president of diversity and inclusion Dr. Shawnrece Butler, emphasized the importance of using poetry to bridge gaps among different and diverse peoples.

Comer, a Black Detroit-based poet, serves as the poetry editor for the journal “Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora” as well as co-director of Detroit Lit. Aside from writing and reading poems concerning her own culture, she said she’s “always reading broadly.”

Not only does Comer read less-read poets from the American tradition but also poems from the perspective of diverse peoples around the world, particularly during important historical events.

Reading diversely can also open up new opportunities to see oneself in others, as it did for Comer.

“I believe that everyone can find a poem for them,” Comer said. “There’s a poem for everyone, right? So I think that most of the time people don’t feel like they see themselves in poetry. They have not met the right poem yet and … it’s probably because you’ve been reading too narrowly in a specific tradition.”

Matherne similarly commented that a feeling of being invisible or unrecognized is common for many readers and that “it’s the poet’s job to make readers visible in the poem, to give them an opportunity to identify with a poem and see themselves reflected in it.”

“I think that oftentimes people think of poetry as having an outdated kind of medium but poetry is growing with the world as well,” Comer said on poetry’s accessibility.

It’s as easy as following a poet over social media, such as Instagram.

“They will tell you what they’re doing,” Comer said. “Poets are always taking pictures of what they’re reading, showing videos of themselves, reading poems.”

She also recommended two podcasts for the busy individual interested in poetry: “Verses” and “The Slowdown.”

On the subject of poetry’s adaptation to the digital age, Matherne said, “As long as poetry will bring out new forms, new experiments, bring about change, I think we’re going to be OK.”

To get involved with writing poetry, Matherne suggested seeking out local workshops, groups and classes at one’s local library or school. She herself is a professor emerita at NMU, having served in the Department of English as director of the master of fine arts program in creative writing and poetry editor of Passages North literary magazine.

As cliche as it may seem, both poets agreed poetry represents a kind of freedom to express themselves, especially in new and untraditional ways. Even in his own time, William Shakespeare had those who criticized what he did, Comer said.

“Contemporary poets are meant to break rules,” she said. “We, as their contemporaries, are meant to listen to them.”

In a literary project of Comer’s based around the rise of techno-music that included interviews with Detroit DJs, she was able to expose a section of the general public to the beauty of poetry.

“And even some of the DJs were like, ‘I don’t really like poetry but I guess I’ll sit down with you.’ And I said, ‘You need to hear my performance on this day.’ And one of them, when he heard his words in my poems, his idea of poetry changed,” Comer said. “He said, ‘I didn’t really like poems but what you did made me feel like I could like poems.'”

In her childhood, Comer herself even struggled to immerse herself in poetry and books.

“I was a remedial reader when I was growing up. I actually thought I couldn’t, I didn’t think that I was going to be in such a literary field because I was what they called a ‘slow reader’ when I was in elementary (school),” she said. “But I actually came to poetry through performance poets. Those were the ones that really got me.”

Matherne, a Louisiana-born woman inspired by performance poets, came to poetry in her childhood as well.

“I come from this exuberant, passionate culture that just loves life and loves to party at the drop of a hat and so we had lots of family get-togethers and parties and little community gatherings,” Matherne described. “At those, my father would sing in French and he would recite Shakespeare’s soliloquies and we would form a circle around him and just wait for that moment of transport when he would start reciting Shakespeare.”

To this day, Matherne said what she wants to do in a poem is “to touch another soul.” She left the audience with one final message: “If your students are the students who have empathy and they have compassion and they are capable of putting themselves into the shoes of somebody else, their take on the universe is predominantly emotional, then get them to keep writing. They like the transport, they love words. I don’t see how we can go wrong by nurturing what are their natural loves and passions.”

This event was put on by Michigan Humanities, an organization that promotes awareness and excitement for humanities in everyday life. To find out more about its programs, grants and opportunities, go to michiganhumanities.org.

Alexandria Bournonville can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 506. Her email address is abournonville@miningjournal.net.