So many things are possible with words. Poets sit in front of a blank screen or paper, just as an artist stares at his canvas, peruses colors, brush size, stroke…. Each line offers possibilities—will the tone reflect bittersweet, longing, inspiration, heartbreak, whimsy? Will it be rhymed or free verse? Which rhythm, literary device, how will it start and when will it finish?

After all these questions are answered, the poem goes through a series of edits, condensing each choice and word down to perfection. Then, another of poetry’s unique aspects comes into play, for poetry is one of few art forms that’s still recited, read, performed or spoken. Poetry still offers the storytelling element that humans crave—that primal instinct tells us to listen as words float across air, watch for gestures, gaze into eyes, hear the tone changes and pull the underlying story from words unwritten.

While more often today, poetry has become a thing read in solitude, still, spoken-word poets memorize and perform in-depth pieces, and others attend readings to share their works aloud.

The Alabama State Poetry Society held it’s Spring Meeting in Fairhope on April 28, and it reveled in the art of written and spoken poetry during workshops and award ceremonies.

About 50 poets and guests attended Friday night’s readings and Saturday’s workshops and awards. The group enjoyed socializing with fellow poets, learning from each other and honing their craft.

During Friday night’s reading, ASPS President Joe Whitten entertained audience members with nostalgic poems that spoke of days gone by, and told tales of eccentric family members.

ASPS First Vice President Barry Marks shared poems of loss and mourning, but was sure to add in his usual sense of humor with a few tidbits about the Southern obsession with food, irritating cats, and so on.

The next day, attendees heard spoken-word poetry from Ayodele Heath as he performed original poems about the pride his father taught him, standing up for Atlanta’s homeless population, and about overcoming stereotypes and racism. The poet pulled energy from a seemingly unlimited source as he portrayed a wide range of emotions, used facial expressions and gestures to pull the audience into his story, stretched pauses and changed tone to bring words of the poem to life.

He performed “Etymology of Ain’t” and the audience chuckled as he began, “Ain’t, used to be aaain’t, which comes from ‘am not,’ as in, ‘I ain’t you,’ but also ‘is not’ as in, ‘he ain’t me.’ But also, ‘has not’ as in, ‘I ain’t been and don’t wanna be.’”

Heath taught a workshop on performing poems, divided members into groups, and gave each group a poem to analyze, then perform, with himself and other groups offering feedback after each performance.

Alabama’s Poet Laureate and ASPS Board Member Sue Walker taught a workshop on “Uncreative Writing” where she explained options for writing found poetry.

Some handy tools for new poets, breaking through writer’s block, or just as means of stretching further into one’s creative spirit, Walker explained forms such as the Oulipo where writers take someone’s poem and apply the “S+7 method,” i.e. they take each noun in a poem and replace it with the word found seven places beneath it in a dictionary. Then do the same with each verb.

Another exercise asked participants to select their own replacement words in established poems.

“Look at ‘The Caged Skylark’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins,” Walker began. “Now I want you to underline all the nouns and put your own nouns there.”

Now go back and circle all the verbs, and put your own verbs. Now the adjectives…”

For Pablo Neruda’s “It is Born,” she asked members to cross out the second line and add their own line. Then change the fourth, the sixth, the eighth, etc. Then go back and change line one, three, five, and so on.

At the end of the process poets had created an original work and some shared their finished products aloud.

Also Saturday, ASPS members and guests attended an awards ceremony for the spring contests. Poems from all over the U.S. were submitted to fourteen contests, each with unique themes, line limits and form restrictions. For example, The Sonnet Award, sponsored by Joe and Shelia Mau, asked for traditional (rhymed) or blank verse sonnets—14 lined poems. They could be on any subject.

The Character Award, sponsored by Jodi Adamson, asked for submissions of any form and line limit, but on the subject matter of a famous person or made up character—a persona poem.

A total of 454 entries by 65 poets were read by 14 judges, and resulted in the awarding of $1,080 in prize money.

For more on ASPS, visit alabamapoets.org.