Today as an adult, Hasbrook is still writing poems and finding ways to use her verses to connect with the community. For the release of her first collection of poems, released as an ebook on CD for now, Hasbrook held a reading event during the December First Sunday Gallery Walk at the Grand Café/Sir Pizza in Lansing's Old Town. The poems in the collection, “Blame it on Eve!,” chronicle roughly a year in  Hasbrook's life, from January 2006 to January 2007.

The book's release is part of the Survivin' and Thrivin' Poetry Series, which Hasbrook helped create in November 2006 with the purpose of “respecting the lives and words of women,” and featured performances by Hasbrook and fellow poets Lisa Sayles, Chey Davis and Susan Harris and singer/songwriter Barb Barton. “Of course, I want to get in my bit, but I also like to be surrounded by friends,” Hasbrook said. {mosimage}

Jen Nichols, who emceed the event, said the performances seemed to share a common theme of “blocking out other voices and listening to your own.” Nichols first started attending open mic nights to support Hasbrook and said although she is “not a poet at all, not even a little bit,” she enjoys the community of poets in the area. “Lansing has a bigger poetry scene than you might suppose,” she said.

Although the day's events were meant to celebrate Hasbrook's new work, it was also a kickoff for a new kind of poetry club the Lansing poet is starting. Each of the artists featured at Hasbrook's release will also be featured in a new series set to become a staple of Lansing's First Sunday Gallery Walks beginning in January. Organized by Hasbrook and the owners of two Eastside businesses, Everybody Reads bookstore and Gone Wired Cafe, the series aims to incorporate live performance into a Lansing art tradition that has typically focused on the visual arts.

“Poetry happens all over the city, but not a regular basis, so I suggested we start the series and have features of live performances,” Hasbrook said. “There is also plenty of art on the walls at Gone Wired, but no one considered it to be a place to visit on Gallery Walk Sundays. It's a way for us to do something together. ”

Scott Harris, owner of Everybody Reads, has agreed to begin selling merchandise by local artists and to co-sponsor the new series, along with Gone Wired owner Colleen Davis, after being approached by Hasbook. “We were not successful with connecting with [locally] published writers, so carrying books by local poets was perfect,” Harris said. “It is something new for us, but it definitely fits into what we are trying to offer.”

Harris believes the new poetry series will offer Lansing residents another option in a different venue. “Lansing in general has events all of the time, so it is a challenge to find events that will excite the local community,” he said. “Art to me is perception, whether it's written or more formal. It elicits feelings or ideas from others. It's important to make it all accessible.”

With the Gallery Walk series, Hasbrook hopes to expose the richness within the Lansing community and she hopes the release of her book will help to kick it all off. “Many of these artists are not considered to be artists by other people, because they have day jobs and other things,” Hasbrook said, “We need to support them.”

Sunday's event reached at least one new person for the cause of local poetry. Kathleen Miller attended the event after seeing it advertised at Gone Wired and said she was excited to learn about the new series starting in 2008.

“I had heard a lot about the work Melissa does around the community with violence against women, which is something I am very passionate about,” Miller said. “It just feeds the soul to have this space for women's words and this community of women speaking out about what they feel excluded from and hearing the truth reflected in their poems,” she added.