Eighteen poets and dozens of patrons crammed into the Shadowbox Studio the evening of April 22, prepared to perform on one thing in particular: the apocalypse.

The event, named “A Reading for the End of the World” by Durham Poet Laureate Chris Vitiello, gathered local poets to read their past and present work, share their goals for the world and applaud each other’s art, as part of Durham’s National Poetry Month celebration. 

Tuesday’s public event joined four others throughout the month, organized by Vitiello, to promote poetry and bring local artists and poetry enjoyers together. 

“One of the exciting things about the event just the other night, on Tuesday night, was that we had 18 poets read,” Vitiello said. “Some of these poets didn’t know each other – there were several different poetry communities represented in that room that don’t have very much to do with each other, really.”

Across the three-hour-long festival, poets shared different interpretations of the apocalypse theme, reading brief snippets of poems or full-length works, with some even incorporating music. 

“It was exciting to have the opportunity to have all these different people in there, not just to share their work, but to hear the work of other people who are basically their neighbors,” Vitiello said.

After the showcase, poets stuck around to sell copies of their work and share ideas, while many audience members were left in awe of the performances.

Annette Smith, the Grants and Special Projects Analyst for the City of Durham’s Cultural & Public Art Program, and the administrator for the Durham Poet Laureate Program, described Tuesday’s event as “terrific.”

“I was gobsmacked,” Smith said. “Just the quality of the performance, the quality of the writers.”

On the performance side, Vitiello said the event energized both him and other artists he spoke to, and sparked their creative juices.

“Seeing the turnout on Tuesday night, and the variety of the poets there, and just the energy that that produced, was a real thrill,” Vitiello said.

The variety of performers and poems provided additional inspiration for the poets, helping remove them from possible poetry “slumps” they might find themselves in, and find their energy once more.

“Everybody’s been working, everybody’s been reading, everybody’s been writing,” Vitiello said. “I think that a lot of people have felt like they’ve been in a little bit of a slump. Just like the seasons, there has to be a winter, and then there’s a spring after.”

Vitiello said he first fell in love with reading poetry as a child, before trying his hand at writing. Vitiello continued his poetry journey throughout high school and college, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in English from the College of William & Mary and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University.

“I never lost that kind of love for language,” Vitiello said.

Vitiello said his desire for community and human connection led him to apply for the Durham Poet Laureate position, which educates residents of Durham on poetry through events and other resources.

“I like being around poets,” Vitiello said. “I like talking shop with poets and analyzing a poem, discovering poets I’ve never heard of before. It’s just that same sort of sustained curiosity.”

The position was formed in 2021, when the Durham City Council asked the Advisory Board to create a Poet Laureate position. D.J. Rogers, Durham’s first Poet Laureate, began his term in 2022. Since then, the City Council has continued its support for the arts in Durham, working alongside the city’s Cultural & Public Art Program, Smith said.

“It’s very rewarding to work for a city that values the arts and the role of artists in our community,” Smith said.

Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams appointed Vitiello as the new Poet Laureate in 2024. Vitiello’s term serves through June 2027.

Alongside his Poet Laureate responsibilities, Vitiello serves as Durham’s Poetry Fox, where he dresses in a fox costume and types on-demand poems on a typewriter at events around the Triangle. Vitiello said being the Poetry Fox offers him a unique perspective on Durham’s poetry scene, which he plans to utilize as Poet Laureate.

“To bring the kind of energy level that I bring to the Poetry Fox into the poetry scene, and try to get everybody connected and everybody doing things together, that’s been the big thing,” Vitiello said.

One of Vitiello’s largest goals is getting people writing, he said, especially in the moment.

“Most of us as poets are working on our poems for months and tinkering with this and adding a line here and cutting,” Vitiello said. “It’s a very solitary and long activity.”

Being the Poetry Fox has led him to meet countless people in the Durham community, Vitiello said. One of his favorite events is attending Duke University’s last day of class each semester, known as LDOC. 

“There are students who come up to me and they’re like, ‘I’m graduating in a couple of weeks, and the most important thing to me on LDOC was to get a Poetry Fox poem,’” Vitiello said. “‘I wouldn’t have felt like I finished at Duke until I got a poem from you.’”

Forming those bonds reminds Vitiello that while writing poetry is important, what poetry can do outside of words on a page is bigger, and he wishes more poets could experience that.

“In the moment of writing is when I’m at my happiest,” Vitiello said. “But, I hadn’t realized that it was actually not as much about the poems as it was about a moment of connection with a person that has often a kind of a lasting impact or starts some kind of relationship.”

Through the Poetry Fox, Vitiello found that people are much more receptive to poetry than he expected.

“Everybody actually likes poetry,” Vitiello said.

Which is why, although Vitiello says “It’s always National Poetry Month” in his daily life, he appreciates the branding and partnerships April brings to his art form, because it allows him to spread his poetry to wider audiences.

“It’s important to pounce on it and make some of those opportunities happen,” Vitiello said.

Smith, an active supporter of the Poet Laureate Program, said she hopes people in Durham gain what they need from the program and poetry as a whole.

“I really would like for Durham to continue to take care of its artists and seek them out, enjoying poetry as an art form, passively or actively as a writer of songs,” Smith said. “I hope we can meet Chris’s mission of his term as Laureate, to embed poetry everywhere.”

Accessibility and visibility are two words Smith used to describe her goals for the program, and that it adds to the vibrant poetry community in Durham that existed long before the position began.

“We are in addition to the great work of many before us, especially the three artists who helped us create this program,” Smith said. “So, respect and kudos to those programs that have been doing this work for years, and I’m just excited to be in a position where I can lift up that work and hopefully make it more visible to more people.”

One way Durham plans to promote the Poet Laureate Program’s future events and other art opportunities is through the Cultural & Public Art Program’s Instagram. Smith hopes that through this marketing, Durham will continue to expand upon the success of the program, and celebrate poetry in excess, like the community did Tuesday.

“To bring 18 poets together for the show at Shadowbox Studios, it really was sort of a family reunion for them,” Smith said. “To have so many community members come out for that show, beyond the poets, was just a really great way to say, ‘It’s National Poetry Month, poets are important, this art form is important, and hopefully, we can do a whole lot more with it.’”