It was hard to tell the Fred Meyer Lounge apart from a coffee shop when the poets from The Spoken Society took the floor to perform some of their poems. Every poem had their quirks and shining moments, but junior Angelia Saplan’s emotional performance of her poem “Collision” had to be a highlight.

Sophomore Quinn Riesenman started the night with a humorous poem about a guy named Richie who had survived many misfortunes.

Following that, Saplan performed. The room fell into a hush as she rattled off lines like “Have you ever witnessed a car crash,” “I don’t know what was worse the rape or the stalking,” and “Justice in this country sounds a lot like ‘Just shut up already.’”

After a slight road bump where Saplan forgot the next line, she finished strongly, leaving the room pondering every line.

Freshman Benjamin Bartu performed his poem “Spilled Popcorn.” “It is about that. It’s not an innuendo,” Bartu said to preface the poem.

The next poem appeared to be an innuendo when freshman Thomas Shearer started describing a heated encounter. In the end, the subject turned out to be just a comfortable chair.

“This one is a little less sexual,” Shearer said. The following poem featured a sense of what it is to create with lines like: “Let the senses dance and surf on waves of sound.”

Junior Gabi Gonzalez, one of the students who started the Spoken Society, performed a powerful poem about a powerful woman, her sister. It didn’t have a title, but it began by saying that the stories of strong women need telling and with the poem, Gonzalez told the story of her sister facing Goliath or a giant. “This is the story of a girl who grew up too fast, who became a woman before she even knew what it meant.”

Sophomore Heidi Ambrose read a poem about loss. “I have a poem that I wrote a long time ago about something that happened an even longer time ago.” It was a poem that detailed the struggle Ambrose had as a young girl trying to make sense of a tragedy that befell her poems. She discussed how the event brought too many complications, saying, “It took the dull out of our lives. And I want it back.”

Junior Jenny Gorman followed with a short poem about wanting to believe lies.

Freshman Andrew Hampson performed a trio of poems: “I Pity You,” “Design” and “Antique Caramel.” The first two were very serious, reflections on life. “Design” ended with the line “Do you know design? Who designed you?”

“Antique Caramel took a turn for the hilarious. Hampson prefaced it with  “I think I might have to remove my tie for this one.” The poem centered around the character Caramel, a prostitute who has lived out most of her life on the street, where the other prostitutes tell her she’s too old to be doing what she’s doing.

Sophomore Sarah Stark, who together with Gonzalez formulated the idea for The Spoken Society, performed a poem about being awoken by an alarm. The poem centered on that line between waking and dreaming.

Freshmen Lucas Hester and Hannah Roberts ended the night with their poems. Roberts’ centered on a moment in a crowded airport, where she compared some people to “eternal bulls in a China shop.” Hester’s poem was titled “Writer’s Block.”