POETRY IN VERSE: MEET THE SALON

Photo by Max Dickman

The air is warm inside the cramped living room at 415 Euclid Avenue as poetry lovers begin to gather inside the home. Sangria and cookies greet visitors as guests and readers quiet down to prepare for a night of poetry. It feels like a warm Thanksgiving party without much of the chaos that usually surrounds the holiday. Then, the room falls into silence.

“Oh I could drink a case of you,” Haiden Nourse says looking into the crowd at the first meeting of The Salon in 2025.

Nourse is reading “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell to open up the night of poetry at The Salon. As one of ten readers for the night, Nourse sets the mood for the rest. All the attention is on Nourse now; it’s a trend that will continue for the remainder of the night.

“The vibe was unparalleled,” Del Hendricks, a first-time reader at The Salon, said.

The Salon at Syracuse University is a monthly meeting of poets, authors and creatives that aims to create a space for writers who feel unheard in society. The Salon isn’t funded or sponsored by SU—it functions as an independent, student-run space.

The Salon began when Audrey Weisburd, an SU alumna, started organizing readings including Haiden Nourse and Dayna Bhatti Roberts. Weisburd had always been “fascinated” with the idea of a salon at SU that mirrored the literary salons of Paris in the 1920s.

“Poetry is such a beautiful and powerful vehicle to connect people, and it can be such a fresh form of self expression when read aloud,” Weisburd said. “I wanted to give people that platform. I wanted to create a space where interesting and deep conversations open up naturally.”

Once Weisburd graduated, Nourse and Roberts wanted to keep The Salon alive.

“I thought [The Salon] was cool, and I wanted to continue to hold a space on campus where writers feel comfortable sharing their work, and where people were actually listening to them,” Roberts said.

A meeting at The Salon starts before the actual day of the event. Nourse and Roberts create a lineup based on a group of poets or artists that they know can bring the message of The Salon alive. Then, they pick other readers based on Instagram DMs and an interest form. Nourse and Roberts want to ensure that everyone who is interested in reading for The Salon is able to present creative works.

Nourse and Roberts ask the chosen presenters to pick one original poem and one reading from a notable or published poet. Based on the number of presenters and the theme of the night, Nourse limits the amount of work readers can share due to time constraints.

“I think each night is really cool because it’s all very different, even though it’s created from a similar format,” Nourse said.

However, presenters have individual discretion when it comes to choosing their pieces for each reading.

“I chose my first piece because it was about a long-term relationship ending,” Hendricks said. “And I felt that after a long-term relationship ends, you discover yourself in a whole new light, like you have to learn how to reacknowledge who you are without the context of another human being.”

Roberts picked her poems based on appeal to readers.

“I wanted to pick something that would resonate with people,” Roberts said. “I think another important thing about The Salon is sharing work that you think people will resonate with because you want them to resonate with it.”

Aliyah Baynard, a first-time reader at The Salon, chose her poem in order to express her emotions.

“You use the same medium to talk about your pain or your happiness,” Baynard said.

Most guests attending The Salon have to RSVP via Instagram in order to enter the space, which is limited to 48 guests per night. This makes nights at The Salon a very intimate experience, with poetry filling every square inch of the tight, cramped room.

Nights at The Salon can consist of poetry nights, short story nights, or open mics presenting work from SU or SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry students who want to participate in the activity. Usually, there are 10 to 12 speakers each night who come to share their work.

The majority of speakers at The Salon are queer and female. At the first Salon of the year, poems discussed personal identity and sexuality, as well as relationships with the ideas of home and family.

“It’s a space that welcomes all, but also centers women’s voices, and what they want to say, and queer voices and people of color’s voices,” Nourse said. “And then being able to share that in a room is so powerful.”

Hendricks agrees.

“If you don’t get poets talking about injustice, about liberation, about struggles of different minority groups, I don’t think we’re exploring poetry at all,” Hendricks said.

Hendricks, who initially found out about The Salon last year, wasn’t involved until this year, when they finally got the opportunity to present their poetry.

“I think there’s something really special about being surrounded by other writers, especially other writers whose genres and ways of writing are very diverse,” Hendricks said. “Like all the people that read are very, very different.”

Nourse and Roberts open and close the night with original poetry and readings, which they do to ease the pressure on readers for The Salon.

The works presented in The Salon’s lineup are 56 NOISE usually deeply personal, leaving both guests and readers to experience an intimate relationship with each work.

“My favorite part about The Salon is that each night there’s different people, and so you get to hear about different people’s lives,” Nourse said. “And there’s obviously some people I recognized, but I met a lot of new people through The Salon and have gotten to know a lot of people really deeply through their work.”

Even as The Salon maintains its space outside of SU, Nourse and Roberts want to leave a legacy on campus that will keep The Salon alive after they’ve graduated as a place for poetry.

“The Salon is very important to me because I think it’s vital to have a place for poetry, especially right now, as art is being pushed aside and just deemed meaningless,” Roberts said. “So I think it’s important to have a space like The Salon to foster creativity and community.”