EOT 443 Poetry Fox

Chris Vitiello joins Autumn Smith for an interview about his work as the Poetry Fox, a local performance art project where Vitiello dons a fox costume and writes poems for people at various events.

Early voting is available through October 31st. So far in 2026, early voter turnout is up 58% in Durham County and over 70% in Wake County from 2022's midterm elections. Pack the Polls is offering a voting shuttle for NC State students and faculty to ride from Talley Student Union or Centennial Campus toward the on-campus early voter site at 1220 Varsity Drive.

Finally, the usual Oakwood Halloween House "block party" is in limbo as the City of Raleigh demands the acquisition of a special events permit to host an expected five to six thousand people on Oakwood Avenue this Halloween.

Eye on the Triangle is a podcast produced by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2, student-run radio from NC State University. Like what you hear? Consider supporting it with a gift to the WKNC Enhancement Fund. Visit our podcast page to hear more and follow us on all social media platforms @WKNC881. Thanks for listening.

Creators and Guests

Host

Autumn Smith

Public Affairs Director (2026-2027)

What is Eye on the Triangle?

"Eye on the Triangle" is your source for local news, reviews and interviews. Roughly an hour of programming, this block is essentially the NPR of WKNC. Tune in to hear about news and events around Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and the surrounding communities. To find out more about our program or learn how NC State students can join the team, email us at [e-mail].

00:04
Autumn Smith
You are now listening to Eye on the Triangle, WKNC's weekly public affairs program from the campus of North Carolina State University. Any views and opinions expressed during Eye on the Triangle do not represent NC State or student media. This is WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1 Raleigh.

00:25
Autumn Smith
Hello, and thank you for tuning in to Eye on the Triangle. This is Autumn Smith with WKNC. Early voting is still open through October 31, 2026. In the first six days, Wake county surpassed over 100,000 ballots cast, according to the county's Board of Elections. Voter turnout is reportedly up over 70% from 2022's general midterm election. Durham county reported over 68,000 early voting ballots in the first 11 days, which is a 58% increase from 2022.

00:55
Autumn Smith
Pack the polls North Carolina State's non partisan voting coalition is still offering an early voting shuttle through the 31st. The hourly shuttle makes two stops at the Reynolds Coliseum Loop at Talley Student Union, and between the BTEC and Plant Sciences buildings on Centennial Campus, bringing riders to 1220 Varsity Drive, the sole early voting site on NC State campus. More information regarding the shuttle as well as voting resources and information is available at packthepolls.dasa.ncsu.edu. The local Oakwood Halloween House is facing a cost hike this year as the City of Raleigh is requiring the property owner to obtain a special events permit.

01:34
Autumn Smith
Jesse Jones, the man behind the elaborate Halloween displays on the Oakwood Avenue home, is facing over $6,000 in cost due to demands from the city, according to wral. The house intersecting east street has become a local staple as over 6,000 people visited on Halloween in 2025. Pairing with the Day of the Dead 5K, which will also pass through the Oakwood Cemetery on October 31st. The City of Raleigh is raising safety concerns. A statement from the City of Raleigh's website states that a special event permit accounts for the increasing attendance of the event and will provide barricades to close down streets, ensure insurance and organize a cleanup after the event. No official decision or announcement has been made regarding the acquisition of the special events permit, leaving local residents and trick or treaters wondering what to expect on Oakwood Avenue this Halloween.

02:22
Autumn Smith
Now joining us for a segment on today's Eye on the Triangle is Chris Vitiello, locally known as the Poetry Fox, to discuss his art form and impact on the local community. So for our listeners, what is the Poetry Fox?

02:35
Chris Vitiello
Oh yeah, the Poetry Fox is a sort of performance that I do at all sorts of different kinds of events. I write poems on the spot on a typewriter. People come up to me and they give me a word, and then I write them a poem off of that word and read it to them and give it to them to keep. And I am usually dressed as a giant fox while I do this.

02:57
Autumn Smith
And what a spectacle that giant fox is to NC State campus. So you got your master's in writing and done freelance writing throughout your whole life. What brought you to poetry?

03:07
Chris Vitiello
You know, I got interested in poetry as a really young person. I think it's probably the classic entry point. You read a few poems and you're like, these are different from other kinds of writing. I want to know more about these things. So just became a reader at a young age. And honestly, I think every kid kind of starts out as a reader of poetry. Most, you know, picture books are basically just a poem that's sort of strewn across the book with images there. There's a lot of rhythm and rhyme and sort of play in the language in children's books. And I think those kinds of characteristics of language, you know, I never moved on from those. I'm still an infantile reader in a way. Yeah. But, you know, the more poetry I read, the more widely I read.

03:58
Chris Vitiello
I just found these vast areas of what you could do with language out there and stayed interested. I'm still finding those areas of language.

04:08
Autumn Smith
That's really interesting. Would you say that creativity that comes with poetry has been a different experience for you compared to other forms of writing?

04:15
Chris Vitiello
I don't think so. Actually, I might be a little bit of an unusual writer compared to a lot of other poets. I remember, even in fifth, sixth grade, middle school, when I was starting to get into creative writing classes with other students and with teachers, the thing you were supposed to do was find your voice, right? Like you had a voice inside you that you were supposed to express outside onto paper. And for me, it was always kind of, it was different. I, I'm more of an observer, you know, I, I pay attention to the world outside of me, and I try to record that on paper. So I don't know that it really felt that creative. It was more just like work, like problem solving in a way.

04:58
Chris Vitiello
And I mean, certainly we could get into the weeds and talk about creativity and problem solving as being the same thing. So, you know, I, I, But I think the point of differentiation, that I wasn't and still am really not an expressive writer. I'm not trying to capture myself on the page. I'm trying to capture the world on the page, which to me feels kind of like work. It's more a matter of attention and then being able to handle the form.

05:26
Autumn Smith
I've never heard anyone describe it like that, but it makes a lot of sense. It's a fascinating approach to poetry, especially at the volume that you do it.

05:33
Chris Vitiello
I think it was sort of like a game in a way. Even now I sort of teach poetry games, workshops that try to, you know, try to pick up on this. But. But yeah, I was like, let's see if I can write a poem about that. You know? You know, I see a car accident and I'm like, let's write a. Let's see. Let's see if we can make a poem about a car accident, you know? Yeah, just observation and. And it was almost like a challenge to see what I could get down or. Or let's write 10 different poems about the same thing and see how different the 10th one is from the first one. Or those types of activities. Let's write a poem without using these particular words. Let's use a constrained vocabulary.

06:15
Chris Vitiello
And I found friends in the neighborhood or in school or in these classes, and we would just sort of do these games together, often timed. So there was something about the speed of production. Don't overthink it. Don't take two weeks to labor over it. Let's set a timer for 60 seconds and see what we have at the end of a minute of writing and go from there.

06:36
Autumn Smith
That is very intricate. Your experience goes to show just why you excel at being the poetry fox. So digging more into your character and what you do. Why a fox? What does that mean to you?

06:46
Chris Vitiello
You know, its origin is random. Someone gave me the fox costume as a joke gift. It had fallen into their hands kind of randomly, and they were going to throw it away because they didn't want it. And they thought, oh, Chris likes weird stuff. So it was given to me as a gift and I sort of goofed around with it with my kids for a few years. And then, you know, I was part of an artist collective that had a space in Durham, and we would do these sort of open house events on a Saturday night with a few different things going on in the space. And one night I thought, I should get the fox suit out and do something with it. I'll write poems on the typewriter. And. And so it was kind of born as a bit of a whim.

07:33
Chris Vitiello
But then people just kept asking me to, hey, will you do this at a party? Will you do this at a wedding? And it Just kind of got its own momentum from there. So I didn't choose the fox animal, but it just seems to have been the right one, you know, like, this couldn't be a dinosaur poetry dinosaur. You know, the. The fox costume is kind of perfect for it, and. And the fox as animal is a perfect fit. The physical costume has something to do with it. Like, so there's a giant foam fox head that I wear, but I don't see out of the eyes of it. I can't see anything straight ahead. I can only see through the mouth. So if you imagine sitting in front of like a keyboard and.

08:21
Chris Vitiello
And you put the fox head on, the only thing you can see is the keyboard. Like, you can't see in front. You can just see straight down. So it's kind of like physically this focus mechanism, you know, so that. That even worked as well. Putting the head on, I was like, oh, I could type, but I can't really walk because I can't see anything.

08:43
Autumn Smith
It's fascinating how your costume creates restrictions that have created what the poetry fox is. It helps you focus just solely on the poetry. So moving past that, tell us about your work in NC State's library communications. What has your experience been like with students and faculty here at the university? Would you say your role as the poetry fox has made an impact there?

09:03
Chris Vitiello
You know, I'm not sure if it has. Maybe somebody else could answer that. You know, what I do at the libraries is I'm not a librarian, I'm a writer, and I sort of write about what our librarians are doing, what kinds of programs they are putting together, what kinds of services they offer, what kinds of events we are running. And, you know, I. It's basically pretty straightforward journalism in a way, but some literary things come in. There are other poets that work at the libraries. It's sort of, you know, there are poets throughout the organization. Another poet that I work with in the communications department is Chris Tonelli, and he and I have been friends for a very long time. And we worked with Marianne Fragola, who organizes all of the. She's the director of programming and public engagement at the libraries.

10:00
Chris Vitiello
We recently, last, a couple years ago now, put together a group called the Silent Reading Society. It's an event that's basically a silent book club type of thing. You come, you can bring a book, or we supply some books, and we sit in a screen, free, quiet space and just read for an hour. And students love it. We. We pack the room. You know, we. We need. We need to get Extra chairs all the time because people are just into reading. So I think, like, you know, anytime there's an opportunity to do a poetry thing at the libraries or do something that emphasizes reading and access to books, I think the Poetry Fox is there a little bit for me, because reading is such a huge part of being a poet.

10:47
Autumn Smith
Yeah, absolutely. It's really good that you guys have these reading outreach efforts for students.

10:52
Chris Vitiello
Yeah. There are a good number of sort of reading oriented events at the libraries these days. I'm working on an article about such things and we've been calling the article Reading is Back. So, you know, because I think that students are really into it. They, they talk about what a joy it is, what a relief it is, how calm they feel after sitting and just reading a book for an hour. They're like, I wish I could do this every day. And then the poets there are weird. Like you can, you could do. You could just decide to read an hour every day. Like, like poets generally do. Yeah.

11:34
Autumn Smith
With efforts such as the Silent Reading Society, how do you see that impacting not just NC State campus, but the local community?

11:41
Chris Vitiello
Well, I think people are. You know what I find while I'm doing Poetry Fox events kind of all over the place is that people have a lot of anxiety about feeling out of control of their lives. They feel like there are these other forces and AI is one of them, but not the only one that are kind of running them ragged and taking a lot of joy out of their life and replacing it with anxiety. So for me, it's. It's just like the Poetry fox is a very joyful practice. People really enjoy it.

12:18
Chris Vitiello
Even if I'm writing, for instance, a memorial poem for a lost relative or a pet or something like that, if it's a very serious moment, I think people get a lot of pleasure out of the Poetry Fox and I think anything that I can do that presents reading or literature or a poem as an example of reconnecting with yourself and with the humanity of others. That's good. I'm kind of addicted to doing that as much and as quickly as possible.

12:50
Autumn Smith
This has been Eye on the triangle from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1 Raleigh. Thank you to Chris Vitiello for joining this episode. Our theme song is City Lights by BerryDeep, licensed under Creative Commons. To re listen to this or any other episode, visit wknc.org/podcast or subscribe to Eye on the Triangle on your favorite podcast site or app. Thank you for listening.