Another student review of the recent BathHouse reading that featured Creative Writing Department faculty, this time from Kathlyn Snow:
The BathHouse reading program opened for the fall of 2010 in the Sponberg Theatre on The Eastern Michigan Campus to a full audience. Staff from the Creative Writing Program presented some of their work. The acoustics were great but I had a hard time hearing the names of the pieces. The authors tended to drop their voices when introducing their works, so please forgive me if I have the names wrong.
Hume opened with readings from her book of poems, Shot. She accompanied her reading with soundtracks in the background. The backgrounds blended with her words, although sometimes it was hard to catch the words. Her work Election, was hard to understand the connection between the word and the background. I would have liked to have read the book first to have had a better understanding of the reading. Other works, Soggy Muff and Self Stalked, worked better with the background.
Harryman read her Light Poem with the intensity of a flash of light: quick, brilliant and intense. The selection form her work Babyo, was interesting. A line from Interview with Teenagers stuck with me, “ Everyone has a baby in him or her.”
Halpern finished the evening with Love Song to My Fallen Soldier. His explanation of he inspiration for his poetry, Katrina and death of a friend drew me into his reading. His lyric style and gentle swaying caught the audience’s attention.