The Reading and Writing Center hosted an event called Pies and Poetry on Oct. 23 to celebrate Sacramento’s first poetry week.

Instructional assistant Stuart Canton said he coordinated the event because he noticed there was no English club when he first came to the campus in April.

“Here in the reading and writing center, as I’m the new captain, I want to make sure this is a space that feels like you can hold both your goals that come with a dollar attached to it, but also be a whole person who experiences things and wants to be understood,” Canton said.

There’s an empathetic crisis of being human and the ability to recognize others’ humanity and what they need, Canton said.

“I think when I heard the readers tonight, it was a lot heavier than I expected,” Canton said. “I actually thought the poets were going to read stuff that was closer to the surface, but this was deep. This was stuff that was really raw.”

A poet needs to have fortitude to face countless kinds of rejection and to have the strength to believe in what they’re doing, Canton said.

“The poet’s greatest hurdle is the poet’s understanding of themselves and what they want to do,” Canton said. “Poetry doesn’t have a set path, you don’t have to get published in any particular thing.”

Isaac Dew-Hiersoux, a 23-year-old history major, was the first to sign up for the open mic and shared his poem “Renaissance.”

Dew-Hiersoux said he didn’t consider himself a poet until he took English Professor David Weinshilboum’s class.

“I felt like I wasn’t qualified and it really wasn’t my place, and as it evolved, I really started to express myself in a new imaginative way,” Dew-Hiersoux said.

Dew-Hiersoux said it was exhilarating getting his story out and for his voice to be heard.

“I was shaking in my left hand, I had to primarily hold the book in my right hand so I could actually read it,” Dew-Hiersoux said.

The biggest misconception about poetry is that poems need a certain amount of syllables and rhymes, Dew-Hiersoux said.

“You just have to express yourself and when you express yourself that’s when you find a rhythm,” Dew-Hiersoux said.

Thirty-three-year-old psychology major Catailia Wilde shared her untitled poem for the first time in front of a live audience.

“It was so nerve-wracking and I felt like I was going to cry,” Wilde said. “It was intense, but I am proud that I did it. I never thought I would be brave enough to do that.”

Wilde said her poems give words to the feelings of sadness, depression, misery and failure.

“I’ve always wanted my poetry to reach people because I feel like a lot of people feel really deep, dark emotions sometimes,” Wilde said.

Wilde said poetry helps her express her emotions in a tangible way that helps sort out her experiences.

“Having people come up today to say they felt that and they really enjoyed my work was incredible,” Wilde said.