As the sun set, poet Matthew Porto read from his new book, “Moon Grammar.” With the lights dimmed low, Porto read by candlelight and soon with the moon as a backdrop.

On Saturday, Oct. 5, the Dartmouth Cultural Center hosted Porto and Charlie Riggs, who is a history professor at Bentley University, for an evening poetry reading and conversation.

“The origin of [Moon Grammar] really came out of reading experiences,” Porto said. “It’s reading and it’s other writers that get me writing.”

Unlike other poets he’s spoken to, Porto likes to write “into concepts,” he said.

“Once I have an idea and I have sort of sketched a book, I like going, ‘OK, I’m going to write a poem that fits this book,’” he added.

Porto’s inspiration for “Moon Grammar” came after he read a “somewhat ignored” tetralogy by the German author Thomas Mann, which was about the biblical Old Testament figure Joseph, he said.

“Ideas in the book were just so compelling, so fascinating to me, that I felt like it was exactly what I needed to make a project,” Porto said. “I stole the term ‘moon grammar’ from him and then it all kind of fell into place.”

Riggs was with Porto when he received a phone call from the publishing company Slant Books.

“He was visiting with my family at the time and he got this phone call, then disappeared for a few minutes,” Riggs said. “So I’d been friends with him when this book came into fruition.”

During the poetry reading, Riggs and Porto spoke about the background behind some of Porto’s poems but also about poetry in general.

Poetry readings can sometimes be a “taxing experience for an audience,” Riggs said. As a way to combat this exhaustion, Riggs and Porto broke the event up with conversation and some informality to make the event “less of an intimidating, unapproachable thing.”

“The concept of this was just to have a somewhat informal conversation about his poetry, about poetry in general, about poetry as a public art form,” Riggs added.

Maura Nolan, who has been involved in the Cultural Center for a little over a year, organized the poetry reading after realizing there were opportunities to “open this place up,” she said.

Nolan knew Porto through Riggs, who she said were both “really interesting, fun, smart, wonderful guys,” so when she thought about ways to make the Cultural Center “a little hipper,” she decided to start with a poetry reading to bring in “different forms of art.”

“I think that poetry isn’t heard, seen, experienced, in public nearly as often as it should be,” Riggs said. “Hopefully an event like this will change that.”