Poetry and music were brought to life Feb. 17 at Marshall University’s Black Koffee Slam Poetry event.

Black Koffee is an event typically hosted every semester, where students have the ability to share original poetry and music with the rest of the university. The particular theme of this Black Koffee event was centered around Black History Month.

Marshall University secretary of the Black United Students, Heather Thomas, said she thinks it is important for all people to have an experience like this.

“It’s a way for people to be creative and get their thoughts out on paper and to just be free about themselves,” Thomas said.

Senior Anthony Bady was one of the participants at this year’s event. Bady performed two original works of his own.

“Black Koffee has been a thing that’s been on for a while now. I saw it last year and just saw a lot of great people putting their thoughts on paper and I said, ‘you know what, before I graduate I want to try it,’” Bady said.

“This gives a little flavor of black culture and the things that we like to enjoy when it comes to the bands that we have, the type of music we listen to, the type of environment we like and it just gives people the opportunity to see the things that we experience, happy moments, sad moments, just the mix of everything, a great vibe and a great setting,” Thomas said.

“It’s very emotional,” Bady said. “The setting, the nerves is one thing, but just getting to pour your heart out on paper and then letting other people not judge you on purpose, but just kind of relate to you on that level, it makes you very vulnerable to be on stage, very vulnerable to give your feelings. And then to top it off, to get any type of feedback whatsoever from them, it means the world to the person who writes it. And so, I definitely felt the love tonight and so it was great.”

Matthew Groves can be contacted at [email protected].