Erotic poetry reading turns on audience at The Venue

On Tuesday, cautious couples slowly trickled into The Venue Fine Art & Gifts. They were nervous. For most of them, it was their first time.

They peeled jackets from their bodies, slinging them on chairs. Wine was poured and chocolates were savored as everyone slowly got more comfortable in the warm gallery.

Then, slowly, one of the guests walked to the front of the small crowd and bared it all.

As part of The Venue’s weekly Tuesday night art series, local writers and artists read samples of their favorites of their own and other writers’ erotic poetry.

“This is something that came out of a conversation over a glass of wine, which is my favorite type of doings,” said Gabriel Colman, owner and curator of The Venue. “There’s such a fine line between poetry and smut, so I’m pleased to see how these members of the community are going to run it.”

Colman was referring to Patricia Coleman and Glenda Breeden, local writers who helped organize the event. Coleman is The Venue’s current featured artist who introduced the other readers during the event. Other readers included Bloomington writers Irene Olds, Eric Rensberger and Tonia Matthew.

“Standing up and sharing it was wonderful to pull people in, and I could feel everyone with me. It was very intimate,” Olds said, who read some of her own erotic work. “As far as writing, it’s a nice release, thoughts come, and I write almost on a daily basis.”

The poems ranged from sensual to sexy, from emotional to highly erotic. Some were about love and loss. Others depicted explicit scenes of sex.

“Now they are blushing, giggling, hand on their hearts as they shake their heads their eyes meeting with shared mischief,” Matthew read from one of her poems titled “Chron alert at the Diner.”

Audience member and Bloomington resident Virginia Thomas said she enjoyed hearing the poetry reading as an experience for learning how different poets express themselves. She said she also writes and has read her work at open-mic nights around town in the past.

“Any time you go to something like this you have to be open-minded, and you’re going to experience somebody else’s notion of what erotic is,” Thomas said.