As my first impression of the Mark Webster Reading Series, I must say I was thoroughly impressed. From the venue, to the atmosphere, to the amazing authors, I enjoyed myself from start to finish.
The Helmut Stern Auditorium in the University of Michigan Museum or Art (UMMA) is a perfect place to host these readings. The auditorium is beautiful. Not so large that I felt disconnected from the reader, but not so small that I was uncomfortable. Like Goldilocks, I found myself in a venue that was just right. Being from a technical theater background, I couldn’t help but notice that the entire event went smoothly; no lighting or sound errors, no technical difficulties. Seemingly a small feat, but I know how easy it is for things to go wrong, and from what I could tell, they had their shit together.
Entering this event was like entering a separate universe. Within the auditorium, everyone was so friendly and eager to listen to the night’s readers. The hosts were funny and relatable when introducing the event and transitioning between authors. Notable was the peer introductions. Each writer was introduced by one of their peers; a friend and fellow writer. These peers wrote their own introductions, and did very well to prepare me for what was to come. They were very genuine, not only tackling the things each author writes or where they each grew up, but also the composition of their own character, and the most important question: why do they write what they do.
Annesha Sengupta was the fictional writer of the night. Her style of writing the same characters into every story under different circumstances is very clever and unique. The story she chose to share was very moving; a story about a father, told three different times, with three different outcomes. The story did very well to test the bounds of fatherhood, of family. Particularly notable to me was the last of the three stories, in which the father goes to a Waffle House, and proceeds to be haunted by ghosts of his parents, making him reflect on his past with his daughter and wife. I was certainly impressed with the diction and voice imposed by Annesha. Something was certainly to be gained from listening to her read as opposed to reading it myself.
Bryan Byrdlong, the poet for the night, shared a number of poems with the audience. Almost all of them had one thing in common: zombies. When Bryan’s peer mentioned zombies in her introduction, I had to admit I was a little on guard. Fortunately, I was not disappointed by Bryan’s tellings of zombies. These were not stereotypical zombies you see on TV. They were more meaningful. Hidden beneath each one was a message. It was less about being a zombie or running from them, and more about feeling like a zombie. Woven into his poems were questions of race and identity, of right and wrong. My favorite was the first one he read. It was a simple concept, really. He watched a video of a cop shooting a black man, but in reverse. This way, it appeared that the man rose from the dead, and the cop ran away in fear. Something about the simplicity of the story compared to the complexity of the message within certainly made this poem stand out as my favorite. However, the rest of his works were each exceptional in their own right.
Overall a truly amazing experience; hopefully the first of many. Huge thank you to Helen Zell, who gives the amazing opportunity for these writers to share their work, UMMA, for providing a perfect location, and Annesha Sengupta and Bryan Byrdlong, for sharing their amazing work!
