AUBURN - Seating was at a premium Friday night at the Cayuga Museum as laughter, tears, and enthusiastic applause filled its historic halls during the museum's 10th biannual poetry reading.

The tradition began in Spring of 2004 when the museum's board of directors sought a new way to fulfill its mission of promoting the history and culture of Cayuga County. Collaborating with the YMCA's Writer's Voice program to enhance the “culture” aspect, said Eileen McHugh, director of the Cayuga Museum, was “a natural fit.”

Board member Jim Delaney, an English and philosophy professor at Cayuga Community College, agreed. “I enjoy hearing the wide variety of poems,” he said, “from funny to moving.”

The crowd and the company of poets were quite diverse and included seniors in high school, senior citizens, professors, published authors and poets who'd never before read their works aloud. The audience was a receptive one.

Delaney began the evening by reciting two of his own poems, both darkly humorous. Following him, local poets read their own works, with subjects like antique chairs, St. Joseph's Cemetery, dinner and even fungus.

“I find inspiration in the natural world,” said poet Diane O'Leary, of Ithaca, whose poem “Armillaria Ostoyae” (more commonly known as “root rot”) tickled the audience's collective funny bone.

Before closing with a trio of writers from the YMCA's Writer's Voice program presenting a few works of their own, any audience members who hadn't signed up to read but felt inspired to were given the opportunity.

Liz Case, a social studies and psychology teacher at Auburn High School, remarked on how far some of the poets traveled Friday to be at the reading. “It was a unique and interesting experience,” said Case, “to see so many authors coming from all over central New York.”

Poets came from as far as Syracuse, Ithaca, and Beaver Lake to share with Auburn what Jim Delaney named “wonderful gifts that these people gave to all of us.”