Could Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Emily Dickinson ever be in the same room?
At the Undergraduate English Association’s first Dead Authors Party, a group of 10 self-declared literary buffs dressed as their favorite dead authors, mingled and performed selections from their texts Saturday in Norris University Center’s Northwestern Room.
“It’s a way for us to have like an open-mic night on campus with sort of a Halloween theme: dead authors,” said Weinberg junior Caley Walsh, president and founder of the Undergraduate English Association.
She wore a plaid newsboy cap in her rendition of American writer Jack Kerouac.
“We thought it would be fun to bring something unique that has never been done on campus,” Walsh added.
Walsh said Undergraduate English Association members got the idea for the Dead Authors Party from a similar event that goes on at the Guild, a performing arts center downtown, and wanted to try it on campus.
Although most students said they were drawn to the event for the social aspect, many also thought the Dead Authors Party was a unique opportunity to express their passions for all things literary.
“How often do you dress up as a dead author and come and hang out with other similar-minded nerds?” said Kate Pomeroy, Weinberg freshman and one of the event coordinators for Undergraduate English Association and wore a black shawl to resemble Emily Dickinson.
Weinberg junior Amesika Nyaku, dressed as poet Anne Sexton, saw the party as her chance to liberate old demons.
“(Sexton) was a fairly risqu