Students, staff and guests joined in the WRC lab in celebration of Valentine’s Day on Feb. 11 to recite poems about love, hate and indifference.

About 60 poems were performed altogether. Francis Espiritu’s poem was about his first kiss with his best friend. “How sweet it was, the frozen orange,” he said about sharing a popsicle with his first love.

Barbara MacRae turned Margaret Atwood’s “Variations of the Lord Love” into an extended cooking and color metaphor.

Raminder Chohan performed a poem titled, “Many and Often Times.” His reading was an interesting contrast to MacRae’s because it wasn’t outspoken and brave. It was spoken in a beautiful accent that was both soft and passionate.

Bob Dickerson, who organized the event, read a love poem by Danielle Steel. The audience wasn’t sure whether the lovesick puppy act was a joke or serious.

Amanda Ghest did not just read, but performed “This Is Just to Say” byWilliam Carlos Williams.

“I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox,” she spoke, as if she had written the poem to a lover herself. “And which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me they were delicious, so sweet and so cold.”

“I often cry at night when nobody is there to hear,” Daniel Mart recited from his own poem about unrequited love. His voice was robotic throughout and each word seemed deliberate. The crowd was silent during Mart’s evocation of the longing for his lover, and the pain of his angst.

Carlito Olandag recited a love rap after Dickerson coaxed him to the stage, saying, “come on, and dominate!”

“Love is like whiskey,” Maryam Mubeen spoke, reciting a poem by Langston Hughes. “Love is like red wine.” Her delivery was passionate and powerful.

The event came to a close as a participant sang “Grow Old with You,” the popular song by Adam Sandler. It was a strong end to a Valentine’s Day poetry reading and conveyed hate, love and indifference. These qualities were exactly what the WRC lab, Red Wheelbarrow and the English department wanted to get across.