Madisyn Lovelace performs her poetry at the Owl Acoustic Lounge in Lethbridge, on Jan. 28. Photo by Lenna Isleifson.

The glare of the spotlight holds you frozen in its steady stare. Expectant faces become distant and unfocused as fingers of silver light gently reach into a deep, sheltered place within you, now laid bare. Deep breath out and in and then you begin. 

Sitting in the audience it’s not hard to see a certain measure of courage is required to mount the steps and read an original poem to a crowd of strangers. 

What’s less obvious is the intense vulnerability.

Yet, poets from Lethbridge and the surrounding area gather every month to read poetry they’ve written and to support each other in their craft.

Madisyn Lovelace is a poet and singer-songwriter from Red Deer, who recently read her original work at an open mic poetry night at the Owl Acoustic Lounge in Lethbridge. She has been writing songs and poetry for most of her life and says it gives her a baseline for understanding herself.

“Poetry gives me emotional release. It’s like the words you don’t have in your heart to say in a conversation. They just come out on paper.”

She calls it a timestamp; a snapshot of life at a particular moment to be revisited as the years go on.

“I think it’s important to write poetry with every emotion that you have, because it really gives you some consistency to understand yourself.”

For Lovelace and many others in the poetry community, verse is woven into the bedrock of everyday life. 

However, in 2024 when BookNet Canada surveyed 1,211 English speaking Canadians over the age of 18 about their leisure activities, they found that the percentage of Canadians who read poetry is the same number as those who read books in a language other than English – only 16 per cent.

Alivia Ffrench is a criminal justice student at Lethbridge Polytechnic. She says she was interested in poetry in high school but hasn’t engaged with it since. 

“It was a tiny footnote that you had to do in English class from like sixth grade all the way up to twelfth and…a lot of people either loved it or they hated it. But then as soon as I was starting to get interested, we had to move on.”

She says she has seen the speed of life interfere with everyday opportunities to discover art such as poetry.

“Maybe a lot of these people actually do love poetry, they just haven’t found the right poem, the right way to express themselves, the right kind of poetry for them to really realize that they like it…because we’re focused on breathing and making money and not being put in the ground too quickly.”

But even in a fast-paced, technology saturated world, poetry is still drawing communities together. 

For Lovelace, her relationship with art and poetry has changed her life.

“If I ever had a tattoo, it would say ‘the seeds will surely grow,’ which implies you have no idea what coming to a random open might where you’re not even part of that city would do.” 

She has performed music around the world traces it all back to her decision to begin reading poetry at open mic events.

As for the courage it takes to be vulnerable on a spotlit stage, her advice is to be brave enough to be silly.

“You’ve just got to be willing to be embarrassed for five seconds. And then once the nerves go away maybe you’ll stop judging yourself and realize that there’s a big crowd of people supporting it.”