The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU

06/25/2026

We’re so proud of Lansing Poet Laureate Emerita Ruelaine Stokes’ expansive vision and expert coordination of this magnificent project and endlessly grateful to the Academy of American Poets for their generous support. Read all about it here and, if you’re in mid-Michigan, take a stroll through Tollgate Wetlands to experience it yourself.

Read "Poetry: A Pathway and a Portal into a Sustainable Future" by Ruelaine Stokes, 2025 Poet Laureate Fellow of Lansing, Michigan: https://poets.org/text/poetry-pathway-and-portal-sustainable-future

05/30/2026

We’re thrilled to see Wheelbarrow Books author Mary Morris’s poem from “Late Self-Portraits” featured on The Slowdown today!
To order the book, visit Michigan State University Press at https://msupress.org/9781611864229/late-self-portraits/

04/27/2026

Thanks to the Impact for covering the Blurred Realities Poetry Slam! We are thrilled to be a part of this annual slam at the MSU Michigan State University Museum hosted by Natasha T Miller. Congrats to student poets Charisma Holly and Jeremiah Young-Walker, and Truth the Poet for placing! We're proud of all our student interns who participated, including Jeremiah, Gabrielle, Juno, and Frank, and also happy to see former student intern Jillian Bowe!

On April 9, the MSU Museum brought National Poetry Month to life with the “Blurred Realities” poetry slam. Drawing inspiration from the museum’s “Blurred Realities” exhibition, the event encouraged audiences...

04/17/2026

Today at 3 pm, Erickson Kiva!

04/09/2026

We had an amazing Tuesday celebrating the Lansing Poet Laureate program and welcoming Suban Nur Cooley as Lansing's latest Poet Laureate!
View more event photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rcahcenterforpoetry/albums/72177720332994703

03/31/2026

This Week! Join us Wednesday as we welcome Thomas Lynch and Julia McConnell for a reading and reception. Tom will also announce the winner of the Balocating Undergraduate Prize for Poetry. That's at 7 p.m. in the RCAH Theater, Snyder-Phillips Hall. Details here: https://poetry.rcah.msu.edu/events/wb-presents-2026.html

Then at 2 p.m. Thursday, he'll give a talk at the East Lansing Public Library on "Genre Bending." There are a few seats remaining. Details, including a registration link, are available here: https://poetry.rcah.msu.edu/events/lynch-craft-talk-2026.html

03/30/2026

Poem of the Week: “Dancing in the Dark” by torrin a. greathouse.

Happy (almost) Transgender Day of Visibility! 🩵🩷🤍

~~~

“Dancing in the Dark” by torrin a. greathouse.

After Bruce Springsteen.

I spent summer cloistered behind the curtain of my room, chest wrapped in stolen bra & panicked sweat. Woke each morning, ribs check-marked with the red echo of skin’s dreaming—what it might become. First learned the failures of my body in what a lover abandoned. Saw, in her discarded clothes, my chest as absence. Sold the whole season on a dream of looking like someone else. Danced with a candle’s soft pirouette of smoke, Springsteen crackling in the speakers like harsh light across a mirror’s torn silver skin. He sings “Come on, baby” “this town” “’ll be carving you up” “you gotta stay” “baby” “I’m sick of ” “this” & I wanna sing back, finish this broken lyric: “body.” I let the song play over & over, ’til Bruce’s voice fails him. I wanna press my lips to the hole his voice has burned in the dark & ask him if he ever stopped wanting to change. I stand in my bathroom with all the lights off, clothed in nothing but the word “man,” the first lie I ever stripped off my tongue. I shave down to my scalp. Each strand ignites, hair of brilliant wicks, stubble to sparks, lighting my face, leaving a silhouette of ash.
▼
I spent summer ███ behind the curtain of my █████ panicked
sweat ███ each morning checked ███ the ██ skin ██████▌
███ my ████████ lover abandoned. Saw ██████████
my chest ███████████ looking like █████████████
██▌a candle ██████████ in the ██████ mirror ████▌
███ I wanna ████ finish this ███▌broken▐▌“body.” ████
██████ over & over, ███████ I ██ press my lips to ███
█ the dark & ask █████ to change. █ stand in my bathroom █
lights off, clothed in █████ “man,” the first lie █████████
of █▌my tongue. ██ I shave ██ my ███ hair ██████ to sparks
████ my █ face ███████ ash. ████
 
▼
 
“Check █ my ██ look ███ in the ███
mirror █ I wanna ██ change ▌My ███
█ clothe █ s █ my █ hair ██ my face”  █

~~~

Poem retrieved from poetryfoundation.org.