EMU student Dustin Wingett reacts to Yedda Morrison’s recent BathHouse reading:
Before Yedda Morrison even took the stage and began speaking at the Student Center Auditorium, I was struck by her name. I’ve never heard that name, Yedda, before and I liked the poetic way it sounded. Her name was really the only thing I knew about her work; I came in blind to this presentation and I had no idea what to expect. At first, she seemed quite soft-spoken, and I was afraid it might detract from her poetry, but to my surprise, she was immediately engaging. Her soft voice lent a sort of reverence and power to the vivid landscapes she started off her reading with. Color and nature dominated, creating an intense image in my mind that fell into harmony with the picture displayed on the projector screen above her head. Disjointed, jarring, and out of focus in some bits, the picture lent a background for the strong language she was emitting (even though she said the height of it couldn’t display his effectively, I knew what she was going after). But beyond the color and nature lay something violent and dark. An underlying theme of horror seemed to creep up as she read: murders, blood, hydrogen bomb plants – all violent images intertwined with her flowing language. Her work was natural, beautiful and yet, a bit horrific at the same time. Or at least, that’s what I got out of it.
After the poetry, she showed her work on the subject of erasure which included such projects as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and an image she found in a (I forgot which one) museum. I found the reading of Darkness very chaotic and sonically assaulting as it grew in dissonance and volume. For me, it created a real Tower of Babel effect; everyone was speaking at once, but it was impossible to make out anything intelligible. This is however, not to its discredit as it created a sonic landscape that was just as stimulating to hear as Yedda’s solo poetry. And I found myself agreeing with her statement. Reading it on the screen to myself did nothing, it was static and lifeless, but hearing it by multiple voices really brought out the intensity ad imagery of the work. Unfortunately, I had to leave shortly after this, because of a class so I didn’t get to see the end of the show, but what I did see was completely captivating and worth the time.