"Every three minutes, a woman is beaten; every five minutes, a women is raped."
As temperatures dropped and snow swirled outside, about 40 people packed into the warmth of Green River Café, 211 M.A.C. Ave., as social action theater group E5M began its Wednesday night performance with those words.
For E5M, the line is more than just the first verse in Ntozake Shange's poem "With No Immediate Cause." Besides being the origin of the group's name E5M, which stands for "every five minutes," it also reminds the group of its mission, said Staci Gunner, E5M's co-chair.
"We decided that this poem would be the inspiration of our work to expose sexual violence and engage in dialogue in order to eradicate sexual violence," she said.
When Shange wrote the poem, women were victims or survivors of violence every five minutes, Gunner said. Currently, the statistic is every 2 1/2 minutes, and E5M reads a shortened version of the poem at the end of every meeting to remind them of the prevalence of sexual assault.
"It's proactive, potent and powerful with the intention to expose the raw yet repeatedly dismissed violence against women," she said.
The poetry night, sponsored by Take Back the Night, also featured Deena Tyler, Melissa Dey Hasbrook and Chey Granroth from the women's poetry group Survivin' and Thrivin', as well as individual performers.
April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, is dedicated to preventing and raising awareness of sexual violence through special events, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. It also is National Poetry Month.
Poetry readings — especially for assault survivors — have a very symbolic meaning, Take Back the Night's planning coalition member Erin McLaughlin said.
"Poetry is a voice for a lot of survivors," she said. "It's a healing type of process."
The poetry night is one way for the East Lansing community to listen to survivor stories, McLaughlin said.
"For as many stories of sexual assault that there are, there has to be so many more that are unreported," she said. "We want to promote taking action against sexual assault instead of being passive."
Hasbrook, a survivor of sexual assault, said assault affects every aspect of a person's life.
"It's in all the choices you make and all the relationships you choose," she said.
Sexual assault statistics continue to rise, E5M troupe member Jennifer Weston said, and so does the need for awareness.
"We're doing this so people have the opportunity to talk about issues that they normally don't want to talk about," she said.
Most people don't grasp how their lives are touched by sexual violence, McLaughlin said.
"One in four women and one in six men will be survivors of sexual violence during their lifetime," she said. "And the people who haven't probably know someone that has."
