Students in Courtney McDermott's Intro. to Fiction Writing course will be attending readings and reviewing them on this blog throughout Spring 2010.
The opinions and perspectives documented in these reviews are those of the individual students who write the reviews, and not of the entire class or the English Department at the University of Notre Dame.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
We're Ready for Posts
The Reviewer is now ready for reviews of readings at the University of Notre Dame for spring 2010. Post your insightful, witty, lyrical reviews at your convenience throughout the semester.
Before attending my first poetry reading, I had my own idea (or Hollywood’s) of how the event was going to unfold. I was expecting a crowded, smoky room with an audience sipping lattes and listen to a poet painfully drone on. I imagined that with each line of poetry, the poet would last their last line float in the air and sink into the listener’s minds before continuing the next line. This image of savoring the poetry I saw as painful, but possibly necessary to appreciate the prose and significance each word contributed to its body.
I was wrong. I knew my preconceived notions had been obliterated when I saw a bearded man in horn-rimmed glasses sitting on a coach in the corner of the room passing around a flask to a few others in preparation for the reading. Not exactly lattes but there were a few of those around too. The next thing that I noticed when I started to look around the room more was the audience that was being entertained. It was clear that many of these people knew each other. I began to make categories in my mind: appearance. For females in this crowd you had to have skirt, big earrings of sorts, a tattoo, or flowers on clothes. For guys, horn-rimmed glasses, facial hair of sorts, and long hair would do. It was easy to tell I was but a tenderfoot with my lack of facial hair and contact lenses. I could tell most other people that were not regulars by their appearance. Courtney did swimmingly by using the ol’ skirt and earrings combo; it said, “I’m an literary intellectual, but I am also here to chillax with my writing buddies.” Well done Courtney.
After take a few audience notes, Courtney got up and began the show. Three different poets were featured in this particular reading, so I was prepared for a two-hour lullaby. I sat back, relaxed my body and was ready for the meditative readings. Kim adjusted the microphone, people asked her to come closer to the microphone, and she responded with something along the lines of, “I don’t want to get cum on my face.” I must have misheard her until she pointed out that they were all love poems (hence the worry of cum on the face). Feverishly, she began whipping through poems about love: some romantic and soft, some that raped you ears with the words “placenta”, “bits of pink flesh”, and “blood”. She used very repetitive lines that could have served better purpose (in my mind). She was reading so fast I didn’t know for awhile what was going on, but determined that she was reading a number of poems rather than one long one. Kim shot for a feeling of abstractness that seemed to work, but I was so busy being taken aback from my preconceived notions, that I didn’t have enough time to recover and enjoy the poems themselves. Kim set the tone for the rest of the reading.
(continued) The next poet came up, a mousy blonde lady that had a very distinct style of her own. While Kim took snapshots of “romantic love stories”, Jen, the new poet wrote like a raunchy Shel Silverstein. Her poems were short stories that had cute or less than cute turns at the end. One poem that stick in my mind was Dad Crush: “I sit on my dad’s lap and ask for money.” The poem was nothing more than something you would fins in a joke book. At another point she had a poem about her favorite author that was nothing more than a series of Chuck Norris jokes. I think there were some poems that couldn’t have considered poems, but she did have some very good poems that brought happiness into the room (a scarce commodity after Jen’s dark poems). Overall, I would have to say I enjoyed Jen the best because her poems were simple, understandable for more than just a literary audience, and funny.
The final poet was a man by the man of CJ. He stood up, gave a brief description of his poem. He then said the title. I couldn’t tell at first if he said “Week” or “Weed”. It turned out that the poem was actually “Week”. I thought, however, that the title “Weed” would have served an equally useful purpose. Why do I say this? I couldn’t understand what was going on the whole time. Under my notes for each poet, I gave a detailed description of their readings. For CJ, all I have is the phrase, “What the hell?” underlined three times and retraced seven more. I don’t know what to take from this poet. All I can say he has a large vocabulary and reads very quickly. It was just funny to listen to him as I caught small snippets of his blast of prose.
Well, as a whole, I think it is safe to say that my preconceived notions were demolished. I think I didn’t give it as much of a fair chance as I should have because I was too protective of my image of the reading. I am sure there are readings out there that resemble the one I had conceived in my mind, but I am very glad to have gone to this specific reading. It showed me how fun, relaxing, and social writing can be. There were no critics, only fans. I would love to get together with my friends and do stuff like this. Although it was more extreme than I thought, I am happy I decided to break out of my shell and attend this reading.
Poetry at its Finest
ReplyDeleteBefore attending my first poetry reading, I had my own idea (or Hollywood’s) of how the event was going to unfold. I was expecting a crowded, smoky room with an audience sipping lattes and listen to a poet painfully drone on. I imagined that with each line of poetry, the poet would last their last line float in the air and sink into the listener’s minds before continuing the next line. This image of savoring the poetry I saw as painful, but possibly necessary to appreciate the prose and significance each word contributed to its body.
I was wrong. I knew my preconceived notions had been obliterated when I saw a bearded man in horn-rimmed glasses sitting on a coach in the corner of the room passing around a flask to a few others in preparation for the reading. Not exactly lattes but there were a few of those around too. The next thing that I noticed when I started to look around the room more was the audience that was being entertained. It was clear that many of these people knew each other. I began to make categories in my mind: appearance. For females in this crowd you had to have skirt, big earrings of sorts, a tattoo, or flowers on clothes. For guys, horn-rimmed glasses, facial hair of sorts, and long hair would do. It was easy to tell I was but a tenderfoot with my lack of facial hair and contact lenses. I could tell most other people that were not regulars by their appearance. Courtney did swimmingly by using the ol’ skirt and earrings combo; it said, “I’m an literary intellectual, but I am also here to chillax with my writing buddies.” Well done Courtney.
After take a few audience notes, Courtney got up and began the show. Three different poets were featured in this particular reading, so I was prepared for a two-hour lullaby. I sat back, relaxed my body and was ready for the meditative readings. Kim adjusted the microphone, people asked her to come closer to the microphone, and she responded with something along the lines of, “I don’t want to get cum on my face.” I must have misheard her until she pointed out that they were all love poems (hence the worry of cum on the face). Feverishly, she began whipping through poems about love: some romantic and soft, some that raped you ears with the words “placenta”, “bits of pink flesh”, and “blood”. She used very repetitive lines that could have served better purpose (in my mind). She was reading so fast I didn’t know for awhile what was going on, but determined that she was reading a number of poems rather than one long one. Kim shot for a feeling of abstractness that seemed to work, but I was so busy being taken aback from my preconceived notions, that I didn’t have enough time to recover and enjoy the poems themselves. Kim set the tone for the rest of the reading.
(continued)
ReplyDeleteThe next poet came up, a mousy blonde lady that had a very distinct style of her own. While Kim took snapshots of “romantic love stories”, Jen, the new poet wrote like a raunchy Shel Silverstein. Her poems were short stories that had cute or less than cute turns at the end. One poem that stick in my mind was Dad Crush: “I sit on my dad’s lap and ask for money.” The poem was nothing more than something you would fins in a joke book. At another point she had a poem about her favorite author that was nothing more than a series of Chuck Norris jokes. I think there were some poems that couldn’t have considered poems, but she did have some very good poems that brought happiness into the room (a scarce commodity after Jen’s dark poems). Overall, I would have to say I enjoyed Jen the best because her poems were simple, understandable for more than just a literary audience, and funny.
The final poet was a man by the man of CJ. He stood up, gave a brief description of his poem. He then said the title. I couldn’t tell at first if he said “Week” or “Weed”. It turned out that the poem was actually “Week”. I thought, however, that the title “Weed” would have served an equally useful purpose. Why do I say this? I couldn’t understand what was going on the whole time. Under my notes for each poet, I gave a detailed description of their readings. For CJ, all I have is the phrase, “What the hell?” underlined three times and retraced seven more. I don’t know what to take from this poet. All I can say he has a large vocabulary and reads very quickly. It was just funny to listen to him as I caught small snippets of his blast of prose.
Well, as a whole, I think it is safe to say that my preconceived notions were demolished. I think I didn’t give it as much of a fair chance as I should have because I was too protective of my image of the reading. I am sure there are readings out there that resemble the one I had conceived in my mind, but I am very glad to have gone to this specific reading. It showed me how fun, relaxing, and social writing can be. There were no critics, only fans. I would love to get together with my friends and do stuff like this. Although it was more extreme than I thought, I am happy I decided to break out of my shell and attend this reading.