Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Kim Addonizio presents Lecture, Rebecca Brown, and Brian Evenson Read at Centrum

Thursday July 17, 2008
Grey on grey, a congregation of seagulls of all ages; in the foreground two crows picking the head of a salmon clean. Two fishermen emerge from the fog, only two small boats as far as I can see.

Gulls take off, one sweeping shwoosching wave of wings across the surf. The crows hop, hoppety, hop to higher ground, leaving behind an alien creature gasping for air.


Poetic License

For the afternoon lecture Kim Addonizio reads from a chapter in Ordinary Genius: a guide for the poet within her upcoming book (January 2009) and shares with Tsjechov the notion that you need to write "colder" about emotional stuff so the reader comes to the emotion rather than be hit by it over the head. "'Hopeless grief is passionless', says Browning," she adds.

After dinner Rebecca Brown reads from her oeuvre, and touches us, sharing the bare bones of honesty in her Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary.
Brian Evenson brings someone into our circle we'd rather not know, but who makes us laugh nevertheless. Literary version of South Park. Tragic material seated on a funny bone.

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