Old dead people. To many students it seems as if this is all they read in English class: Ernest Hemingway, Emily Dickinson, Homer.

That’s why senior Lia Hsu-Rodriguez and her AP Literature teacher founded The Live Poets.

Based on a discussion in her AP Literature class with teacher Deborah Carico, Hsu-Rodriguez got the idea to contact different live authors and collaborate with them on their different pieces of literature.

“So one day we were reading this short story…and the ending is very ambiguous…” Carico said “And I told them that the author was still alive so one of my students [Hsu-Rodriguez] emailed him and asked “How did you come up with this story. Did you mean for it to be ambiguous? What’s the real ending?’” she said.

And he responded.

This response further lead to the creation of the Live Poet Society.

The student-oriented club meets on the first Thursday of every month to hear from different authors, with hopes of making literature more accessible.

“To make literature more meaningful…you can actually experience the poetry with the actual person.” Carico said.

The Live Poet Society has made contact with several other authors in and out of the local area and are looking forward to those people coming and sharing their work with the club.

In the first meeting, you could feel the energy in the room and even for an early morning, people seemed excited to get the Live Poet Society up and running including Hsu-Rodriguez.

“I think it’ll allow people the opportunity to read literature by people who are living in the same time as we are and experiencing the same things as we are.” Hsu-Rodriguez said.