Adults reading what they wrote as kids at Sunday event

When Victoria van Veen was writing angsty love poems in her teens, they were never intended for anyone to hear.

Fast-forward about 20 years and the Peterborough resident has changed her mind.

She’ll be reading from her private book of poetry at Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids on Sunday night.

The event takes place at Market Hall, starting at 8 p.m.

The title of the show says it all – it’s adults reading their childhood and teenage writings, from diary entries to camp letters and poems to school work.

Van Veen, 35, signed up for the event as soon as she heard it was coming to Peterborough. She’s been a fan of the podcast for years, often listening with her kids.

“It helps me remember, now having teenagers, what’s it’s like to be a teenager. So it’s interesting to be on that flip side as a parent,” she said.

The mother of four lugs around her book of poems in a memory box that usually ends up in the furnace room after a move. She couldn’t bear to let it go. “It’s like a time capsule of what I was feeling and going through.”

Since she signed up for Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids, van Veen has been flipping through the pages trying to decide what to read.

Will it be that ode to young blues musician Jonny Lang, or one of her love poems directed to no one? She’s still not sure.

While van Veen kept her book of poetry within reach, others who take part in the show tend to look to their parents for their old material.

“We like to say that we could not do what we do without the archival support of moms everywhere,” said Dan Misener.

Misener and his wife Jenna created the show about a decade ago. Dan hosts it and Jenna produces it.

The idea came to them after a visit to Jenna’s parents where they came across her old teenage journals.

“It was a perspective of my wife’s life that I’d never had before and it stuck us that lots of other people probably had this stuff,” Dan said.

The couple does about 25 live shows a year, later creating a podcast and YouTube videos from them. They’ve travelled across the country to host shows, but it’s their first time coming to Peterborough.

One of the joys of an open mic event is that you never really know what you’re going to get, Dan said.

“More often than not, it’s the kind of writing that’s done personally and privately ... a lot of the stuff read on stage has never been read aloud ever before because it was never really written for an audience,” he said.

Some readings are funny, others are light-hearted and cute and some are just weird.

“You will most definitely laugh and you may mist up a little bit, you may get a tear,” he said.

NOTE: Tickets are $14.69 and are available at www.grownups.fm.