Students performed original and classic works of poetry at an event on Tuesday.

The Communications and Journalism department hosted Soap Box Sisters, a Women’s History Month event, to share the stories of women throughout history and to give female students a chance to express their voice.

“It was a really cool experience, especially to get to hear other women’s experiences,” Elizabeth Marcinkiewicz, a first-year radiology student, said. 

Soap Box Sisters is an annual event where students, such as second-year business management student Sarah Green, can share personal stories about their experiences as women and of women who have impacted their lives.

“I write a lot of poems and I wanted to write one for … my stepmom. … She’s sacrificed a lot in her life,” Green, a speaker at the event, said. “[She’s] the strongest woman I know. She’s independent, she has her own business and she also works full time at a … Air Force Media Group. She’s literally a boss, so I wanted to honor her.”

Mariah Alexander, a second-year transfer studies student and speaker at the event, said she read the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou because it had a meaningful message that “a lot of people needed to hear.”

According to Alexander, she was nervous to read the poem but the consistency and short length of “Still I Rise” made it easier to read to an audience. 

Marcinkiewicz, a speaker at the event, said she wrote about body hair as a topic for her poem because of a comment someone made in the past.

“It’s definitely something that’s always come up for me throughout my life … especially being, like, latina and having more, like, darker hair,” Marcinkiewicz said.