During the spring and fall semesters, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities hosts the Third Thursday Poetry Series event at Pebble Hill on the third Thursday of every month.
Since 2013, the Third Thursday Poetry Series has changed locations four times — even transitioning online during quarantine— and adapting has helped the event gain exposure and grow.
However, according to Maiben Beard, the outreach associate for the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities, at the event's core, a love for poetry is what keeps the event alive and connects students, staff and the community every month.
“There is a really strong poetry community here in Auburn," Beard said. "It's really grown, so our audience really is local poets, people who love poetry, and then also, you know, students and faculty."
Barbara Yauss, graduate student in English, first attended the event in 2020 when the readings were virtual and now attends every month.
"My favorite part of the Third Thursday Poetry Series is the environment, the sense of community," Yauss said. "There really is something special about the shared experience of hearing from and meeting incredible poets like Jericho Brown, who I had the honor of introducing at the last reading."
The event begins at 6:30 p.m. with a reception and a 15-minute open mic giving students and community members the opportunity to read their written poetry. The highlight of the event is when a local or national well-known poet read their work.
Ken Autrey, a retired English teacher, began to help organize the event in 2013. According to him, the featured poets will sometimes lead a workshop the morning after or the day of the event for students and community members. He stated that he enjoys seeing the interchange between both groups.
“Our goal has been to connect folks at the university, particularly students as well as faculty too, with people in the community who are interested in poetry,” Autrey said. “And I think we succeeded over the years in having it be a multi-generational and multiracial and very mixed group.”
The Third Thursday Poetry Series started in 2013 at Gnu's Room, a former used bookstore off of Gay Street. Jason Crane, the assistant manager of Gnu's Room and a local poet, started this series.
According to Tina Tatum, the former owner of Gnu's Room, Crane created the night to bring more attention to poetry and draw more people from the community.
After its original founder left, it was continued at a small gallery until moving to the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts in February 2014.
While hosted at the museum, Scott Bishop, who was the curator of education at the museum, helped Autrey and the organizers of the event get funding from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. They also receive financial donations from other co-supporters.
As a result, they were able to host more poets from around the United States and provide necessary accommodations.
In the fall of 2020, the Third Thursday Poetry Series was hosted online after being put on hold in the spring of 2020 because of the pandemic.
This transition allowed the event to be recorded and kept online for a period of time after the event which opened more opportunities for people outside the Auburn area to tune in.
In August 2021, the event transitioned back to being in person to the location it is in now.
“Of course, we had people, people come and had to wear face mask, and that continues," Autrey said. “But at least we were able to begin to get together, and we hope that we can continue to in that.”
Justin Gardiner, the assistant professor of creative writing poetry and nonfiction, has supported the event since 2014 and is now currently helping organize the series.
“To get to know, other writers is wonderful,” Gardiner said. “And then just to, you know, see the community buy into it, that we have managed to, to cobble together a community of people that are genuinely engaged with poetry and like to support these events. So that's wonderful.”
The next Third Thursday Poetry Series event will be hosted on Thursday, Nov. 18 at the Caroline Draughon Center for Arts and Humanities.
The event will feature two local poets from Birmingham, Alabama, Tina Mozelle Braziel and Ashley M. Jones, the first Black and youngest poet to become the poet laureate in Alabama.
Before the event, both poets will host a workshop together at the Sunny Slope Annex for participants who register.
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Kelis McGhee, junior in journalism, is a community writer for The Auburn Plainsman.
