In 2016 Dom was a first year student in the Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts (LSWA) living-learning community at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. During her freshman year, Dom chose to be a member of the LSWA Poetry Club. It wouldn't be until 2017 that Dom and Mitchel Dipzinski would take over as leaders and give the club a total rehaul. 

 

Performance in Poetry Club was founded in 2017 by Dom Witten and Mitchel Dipzinski aimed at introducing first year students to performance poetry. Each week students were given a poem to analyze and model any intriguing facets they saw in the poem. Dom focused more on performance and narrative poetry, while Mitchel focused more on what can be done on the page and form. Together, they encouraged students to create original work and perform it in front on their peers at the end of each semester. When Mitchel graduated in 2019, Dom lead the club by herself. From 2019-2020 Dom focused on giving the students opportunities of seeing more poets and different styles of poetry. Dom called Mitchel to teach form and how to break form. Dom called upon her dear friend and colleague Armando to teach about the overlap between music and poetry. Dom asked currently Creative Writing Club leader Alejandro to do a large scale workshop. All of these voices, including the genius in each member, created a special final year of leading Performance in Poetry Club.

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Performance in Poetry Club still lives on in LSWA under new leadership and Dom os excited to see what the club evolves into.

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Out of respect for the identities of the poets, no photos of the students have been shared here. Click here for a recording of the 2019-2020 cohort end of term community reading.

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