Slam Poetry Event Centers Local Voices on Carceral Impact

The Kimball Art Center hosted a slam poetry event titled "Gazing Eyes and Giving Ears" on December 30, staging live performance as a companion piece to the center's exhibit "Gaze Into These Eyes," which featured work by artists impacted by the U.S. carceral system. The evening used spoken word to deepen public engagement with themes of community struggle, personal experience and the long arc of healing after incarceration.

Locally based poets Sammi Walker, Chris Atkin, Isabella Merritt-Khulmann, Monica Lisette and RJ Walker performed pieces intended as direct commentary on the visual art, creating a dialogue between mediums. The event was free and located at the Kimball Art Center at 1251 Kearns Boulevard. Organizers encouraged RSVPs to help manage attendance and community access.

Kimball Art Center outreach staff framed the program as one curated to center local voices and community storytelling, drawing on slam poetry's immediacy to respond to the exhibit's sensitive subject matter. The center also continued outreach that connects the exhibit and programming to local schools, aiming to broaden civic conversation and provide learning opportunities for students and educators.

For Summit County residents, the pairing of art and slam poetry offered more than cultural enrichment. It put personal narratives about incarceration into a public space, making visible the human consequences that ripple through families and neighborhoods. Such storytelling initiatives can reduce stigma, foster empathy and prompt conversations about mental health, family stability and access to services that are central to community wellbeing.

The exhibit and event also carried a practical public health dimension. By highlighting trauma, reentry experiences and the social determinants that shape health outcomes, the program served as a community prompt to consider policy responses and support systems. Arts based approaches can complement formal health services by providing forums for expression and pathways to connect audiences with local resources.

The Kimball Art Center advised parents to use discretion when deciding whether to bring children, acknowledging the exhibit's sensitive content. The outreach emphasis on schools suggests an intent to adapt programming for age appropriate discussion and to help educators integrate these topics into curricula.

As Summit County continues to grapple with the broader impacts of the criminal legal system, community gatherings such as this one create space for voices that are often overlooked. By centering artists and poets with lived experience, the event aimed to move public conversation from abstraction to concrete human stories, and to encourage local dialogue about healing, equity and public policy.