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An Earlham college professor and his students are urging people in Richmond to participate in an effort to bring back poetry to the community.

English professor David Ebenbach started the Richmond Community Poetry Effort, which is funded by a grant from the college. The effort distributed composition notebooks to different establishments. They hope that people who see the notebooks will write in them.

“Its not that people are petrified and it’s not that poetry is a bad four-letter word. It’s just that people aren’t given the resources or the opportunity to share poems,” said Earlham senior Gabriel Kalmuss-Katz.

Some establishments like the 5^th Street Coffee and Bagel Shop have placed large pieces of paper on their walls to accommodate patrons’ poetry.

On April 19^th, the 5^th Street Coffee and Bagel Shop will sponsor a poetry festival from noon – 3 p.m. at the Innovation Center in downtown. They will read and write poems, including those that are from the distributed notebooks. They will also have a booth for spontaneous writing.

“They might say I want a poem for me about cat litter, and someone will write a poem for you. Or, what ever it is you want, that’s our spontaneous writing booth,” said Ebenbach.