In response, a group of Harvard professors participated in several local anti-war protest readings earlier this month as part of national Poets Against War Day.

But the organizers of Tuesday’s reading were more concerned with the politics between poetry groups at Harvard.

Mirroring the friendly interactions and mutual appreciation displayed between individual poets at the reading, representatives of both the Gamut and the Advocate emphasized fraternity, cooperation and respect between the organizations. And members discounted rumors of rivalry and conflict.

“The Advocate has a reputation for being artsy and pretentious, and we’d like to dispel that reputation by working with another organization,” said Brown, one of the readers and a member of the Advocate.

“There’s a running joke that the Gamut is the enemy,” said Anton V. Yakovlev ’03, a member of both publications. “There’s a mythological competition that’s like legend. But I don’t think that it actually exists.”

Still, members of the Gamut, which publishes only once a year in the spring, say they feel somewhat disadvantaged by their lack of money and the relative youth of their publication.

The Undergraduate Council cut funds this year, but the Gamut says it hopes to hold more events this semester and increase its visibility on campus.

“We’re trying to get more people knowing who we are and what we do,” said Veronica E. Heller ’05. “Everybody knows what the Advocate is, but not everyone knows the Gamut. We sort of disappear in people’s door boxes.”

In spite of their publication’s lower profile, members of the Gamut say they feel at ease in their niche on campus.

“The Advocate and Gamut are different organizations with different interests. The Gamut is pretty new…I think really there’s room enough for both,” said Caitlin E. Barrett ’03.

Tuesday’s reading was evidence of the two organizations’ ability to share a single audience and performance space.

While friends, family and organizers crowded into a barely adequate number of red leather couches and hard wooden chairs, there was no indication of either cramped creativity or divided allegiance.

“In the end,” Brown said, “all you want is to get more student work out in the public.”