From Chris Brown’s assault on Rihanna to teenage zombies, no topic was safe from spoken word professionals and student poets Saturday night at Poetic Gems.

The event, featuring eight student poets and two professional poets, was a poetry/spoken word event hosted by Kela Farmer, a junior in political science and a resident advisor in Tucker Hall.

“Whenever you see someone’s honesty put on display for you, it’s definitely something to admire,” Farmer said. “I’ve always been a big poetry lover all my life and spoken word more recently. I’ve been writing myself for five years, and I don’t really share a lot, but I admire those who do.”

Farmer said she commented on a spoken word fan site, and professional artist Gemini responded, asking if he and another artist could perform for the University. Hailing from New Jersey professional poets, Gemini and Big Mike, wowed the audience with their insightful, and often hilarious, poetic works.

“They both work in education – Big Mike is actually a third grade teacher and Gemini is an associate dean of students in New Jersey. It was pretty cool to have both those types of education — not just for myself who is thinking about going into higher education — but also other people on my staff,” Farmer said. “It caters to the fact that you can work a regular 9-to-5 [job], but you can also have your own creative side that’s a complete flip. I really admire a person who can meet both their loves in their lives and that’s something I want to do.”

Gemini said he wrote his first poem in college at age 21.

“I got into writing because I tried to freestyle while out with my friends and I couldn’t do that. Then I tried to write rhymes and I can’t write rhymes either because the beat was too conforming — so I just wrote poems,” Gemini said.

Farmer said life is her inspiration, living it every day and experiencing what it has to offer. When she first started writing, Farmer vented.

“I didn’t want to have to tell someone my secrets — I just wanted to get it on the page. It formed into stanzas and lines and I thought, ‘hey, maybe this sounds good together’ or I changed the words around to give it a flow. It kind of took off from there,” Farmer said.

Although she was not on schedule to perform, Farmer shared some of her work, despite being nervous about crowds.

“I always have work on hand, so it’s no issue,” Farmer said.

Gemini said inspiration can strike at any time, whether he’s prepared or not.

“Sometimes if you get caught in an unfortunate spot where you don’t have pen and paper, technology is great, because now I’ve got the thumb poem [typing it on a smart phone] if I come up with something,” Gemini said. “I can voice record myself, but a lot of times I’ll get 20 or 30 lines into a poem by repeating the thoughts in my head over and over again as it forms, and I’ll go back and write down the bulk of what I’ve thought and then just finish it.”

Paul Mott, a junior in political science, performed as a student poet, showcasing his poem “2010: A Failed Oddity.”

“I’ve written a lot of poems but have never actually presented one so I figured it would be a pretty great opportunity,” Mott said.

Before going on stage, Mott said he was pretty nervous, but once he began the nervousness went away.

“My poem is just about having that potential in your mind and knowing you can do these great things but actually executing them in society and with society’s fault playing up against your faults it can lead to some step mix-ups.”

This is Farmer’s second event of the same name, and since last year’s was so successful, she decided to do it again this year.

“Last year was great – we had 100+ people come to that event so we decided to do it again and add another artist with that,” Farmer said. “Last year, I had about four months to plan. This year, it’s been about three weeks… but we got it all together.”

Langston Swann, an alumus in accounting, helped with the event last year and came back again this year as just an observer.

“Last year it was just a new experience for us, I had never done anything like this before,” Swann said. “This year’s experience is just seeing the different poet styles of the two artists. Gemini is a more serious poet and Big Mike is more comedic. I think the students really enjoyed seeing the student poets and then seeing the professional poets.”

Mott echoed Swann’s thoughts, finding the performances thought-provoking.

“Big Mike was hilarious and Gemini was just a revelation – he was really deep, made me really think,” Mott said. “Like Kela said at the end – the campus needs more events like this, more honesty.”