EMU student Shaun Williams reviews Julie Patton’s recent BathHouse reading:
I thought the reading to be an ethereal and engaging experience that started off rather shaky. The reason I say this is because the vast majority of the audience was turned off toward the beginning. I especially did not understand her lack of organization and fluidity, and I viewed Patton as a strange presence up on stage.
Then she proceeded to lay down on the stage, still reading her work, and at this point the audience in attendance was extrememly interested and awakened. When she was not standing right in front of you, you basically forgot she was there. You put her out of your mind, and in the process, you started focusing on the words as resonating, persistent beings in themselves. This was the highlight of the experience for me. I really found myself drawn into the spectacle of what she did. I believe she got down in a position like that because she wanted her words to transcend her own borders, and she could only do that by keeping out of plain sight.
Patton’s reading was not a reading. It was a play on the audience, and like Shelley and Spielberg, she really created a monster in the form of her words. Never before have words so clearly stunned me before, and it was all because of her dispositions on stage. The sounds were amazing, and it was quite a lively show, not to say that the other two Bathhouse events were not, but rather, Patton’s was far more rejuvinating. Looking toward the stage and around the audience, I could not help but think that the event was a social/creative experiment of some kind. I know that in my own writing, I would like to try to focus on what is created rather than what I am doing or what I am putting into it. All in all, the reading was a strange, vivacious blend of humor, euphoria, and when it was all said and done, excitement.