Spoken word poetry, a performance art where poets share original works aloud emphasizing vocal delivery, body language and stage presence, isn’t your traditional form of poetry. It welcomes feedback from the audience (often in the form of finger snapping and brief verbal responses) and is meant to evoke feelings and start conversations. Thursday evening, the Arts + Culture Alliance, in partnership with the Marshalltown Public Library, sponsored Poets + Performers, featuring guest poets Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey and Kelsey Bigelow. Rainey started the non-profit high school program IC Speaks in Iowa City, and is a popular guest speaker and author. Bigelow, also an author, believes in “molding incredibly specific emotions into something human, digestible, and cathartic.”

The event was held during the Alliance’s regularly scheduled monthly Connect + Network + Learn meeting for artists, and also featured the works of 12 local poets whose poems are on display at the Alliance’s office now through the end of June.

Earlier in the day, Rainey and Bigelow met with 20 students at Miller Middle School and 30 at Marshalltown High School, sharing their work and providing mentoring, in an opportunity arranged by the library’s Youth Services Manager Joa LaVille. She spoke of her pride in her book club student, Nyemade Harmon, 16, being one of the 12 featured poets.

“I love poetry because it’s the most connecting of the written word,” LaVille said.

The occasion marks the second year the Alliance and library have teamed up to offer spoken word poetry in Marshalltown.

The following people have their poems on: Afton Stout, Allison Fisher, Dan Sheeler, Amber Cannon, Jennifer Castle, Kim Hanken, Lillie Barker, Nyemade Harmon, Ron Hawn, Sharon Witty, Vicki Meyer and Les McCargar.

Alliance Executive Director Amber Danielson noted that poets range in age from 16 to 81.

“The selection committee really felt like it would be interesting if we also added the ages to the poems so that we could understand who wrote them,” she said.

Cannon kicked off the event by reading two of her works. Her first dealt with the recent death of her dog, Huey Lewis.

“It was obviously very devastating for us, but I find that in devastating tragic times, that’s when the best poems can be written,” she said.

Rainey and Bigelow, who often tour together, told attendees that their work is highly personal and reflective of family, friends, society and struggles.

“I love sharing in the vulnerability. I love the community and connection that comes from it,” Bigelow said. “I think when we get to showcase our humanity and embrace that and be humans together, it is probably the most beautiful way you can make change in the world.”

Her spoken word poems reflect on childhood trauma and family dysfunction. She notes that today she is living the life her younger self never thought was possible to create.

“I hated poetry. I was taught it’s supposed to rhyme and meet a certain meter, and I’m not Shakespeare, those things don’t come naturally to me, so I wrote it off,” she said. “But in middle school, I was going through some of the hardest experiences of my life. I grew up around a lot of abuse and neglect and addiction, and I was the peacekeeper of the family…I was focused on everyone else, making sure everybody else was gonna survive the day. And instead, I talked to my notebook, and most often it came out as free writing, a brain dump on the page. But somewhere around eighth grade, it turned into poetry, which shocked me.”

She and Rainey both work as full-time professional poets, a path not always easy to walk, but one they both find fulfilling.

“As artists we have to set up a space to both express ourselves and also speak truth to power — and say our truths even in a society and time when that becomes more of a challenge. This is the moment we need to go, ‘no this is who we are,’ and nothing is changing that,” he said.

The next Connect + Network + Learn monthly meeting is 5:30 to 7 p.m. on June 12.