In collaboration with Unspoken Feelings, Suffolk University’s Neurovariety Club hosted the “New Beginnings” open mic on April 6. 

The two clubs gave students an opportunity to share their poetry, original music or any writing that they created on stage with an audience. 

Those that performed were given a platform to express themselves and have a moment where they could share the art that is so personal to them. Students divulged their emotions and experiences to the audience, lighting up the room with raw and vulnerable creativity.

Sophomore Isabelle Belice was one of the performers at the event who shared her poetry with the audience and said she draws from her own life when writing. 

“Usually I won’t write if it’s not something that I’ve experienced. I usually only write when I feel something that’s really overwhelming and I just have to put it out there,” said Belice.

Sung Hee Lee, the community outreach chair of Unspoken Feelings and host of the event, said the open mic was a collaborative effort. 

“We worked to create this open mic for students to come together and show their mediums of work whether it be singing or poetry or it could be reading a short story,” said Lee.

Unspoken Feelings aims to host a few open mics per semester to give students the opportunity to share their art on stage. Unspoken Feelings puts on open mics a couple times every semester, giving students many different opportunities to perform.

These clubs give students the opportunity to be creative and express their feelings in ways that are more than writing in a diary for no one to see. Creating art from feelings, emotions or experiences can be extremely beneficial.  

“When it comes to art, sometimes when you’re dealing with your own mental health it can coincide on your mediums so we wanted to do a little collaboration,” said Lee.

These open mics give students opportunities to share their art and get more comfortable performing with a crowd, and both clubs hope to make those chances more frequent. When given the opportunity to perform, there are many students that will jump in and sign up. 

“My friend told me she was coming and then I said I’ll come. Then I saw that you could perform if you wanted to and [I] was like okay I’ll do it,” said Belice.

These clubs are made for students to create a sense of community and family within Suffolk. 

“Unspoken Feelings was founded to showcase your poetry, which coincided with writing and songwriting and where you can have a community that you can showcase your art to,” said Lee.

Suffolk provides spaces for students to be able to perform, express, create and invent in ways that may seem impossible for a college student. 

Announcements for either club meetings or other events like these can be found on their Instagram pages @unspokenfeelingssu and @s.u.neurovariety.

Follow Keely on Twitter @menyhartkeely