The healing power of words

Poetry isn’tboring, and Melissa Dey Hasbrook is setting out to prove it. The Lansing localis presenting Hope at the Center at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 15 at (SCENE)Metrospace, a poetry show aimed at using the power of words to inspire andteach about sexual assault and domestic violence.

“It’s going tobe a multimedia performance, which means I’m incorporating some sound and imagealongside some spoken-word,” Hasbrook ensures. “I’m calling it a poetry showinstead of reading because I think people get this idea about poetry as thisvery passive, words-on-the-paper kind of thing.”

Hope at theCenter is anything but passive. The show will tackle difficult topics in honorof Sexual Assault Awareness Month, including recovery, inner strength and beinga survivor.

Havingexperienced all three, Hasbrook hopes that her poetry will help to heal othersand convey part of her own life journey. “This set of poems is coming out of aproject that deals with separation and migration,” she explains. “It’s in partinspired by my own family experience on my father’s side, and what the workdoes is that it arrives at a place of hope and healing which, to me, is veryparallel to journeys of survivors.”

Although the setof poems doesn’t deal specifically with domestic or sexual violence, Hasbrooksays that the emotions are similar. “I happen to be a survivor of domestic andsexual violence, so to me, those processes of where you have to grapple withongoing wounds … to arrive at a place where you are building life has a lot in commonwith that process that people go through after violence,” she says. “Thehealing process involved in (my poems) is something that had a lot in commonwith what Sexual Assault Awareness Month would hopefully convey.”

More than shareHasbrook’s work, Hope at the Center will also raise funds for the MichiganCoalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, with half the proceeds from theshow benefitting that organization.

Poetry at theshow will be intermingled with presentations by the coalition, as well as TakeBack the Night and the Michigan State University Sexual Assault Program. Doorsfor the event open an hour prior to the show to afford attendees time to visitinformational tables, and to talk to advocates.

For Hasbrook,the issues have been familiar topics in her work and in events she has hosted.However, this will be the first time her work will benefit a nonprofitorganization. “My work has brought poetry to community spaces on issues aroundviolence and women,” she says, “but this is the first event I’ve where mypoetry will be helping contribute toward their resources.”

Hope at theCenter will take place at (SCENE) Metrospace, 110 Charles Street, East Lansingat 8 p.m. Thursday, April 15. Admission runs on a sliding scale of $5-10, based onability to pay. For more information, visit http://deyofthephoenix.com.