Category: Literary Arts

I’ve learned to take notes during these things because it’s easy to let the experience rush past you and carry you for a little while, but when trying to think of things to write the review about, you can remember nothing but the shivers the author’s voice sent down your spine–you can’t even remember the words. But looking over my notes from this reading, I find that they fall flat in an unexpected way. I enjoyed the reading immensely, but looking back at my notes, looking at things that I wrote down thinking this is it, this is what I like, I find something lacking about them, as if they were random, tangential scrawls with little discernment. Whatever it was that roused my interests during the reading is not there.

I think this has to do with the voice of NoViolet Bulawayo. When she speaks, she speaks knowingly, confidently. Her words fell from her lips heavy and assured, as if the way they would land upon ears was predetermined. It was an enchanting certainty–there was nothing hesitating, nothing nervous about it and that lack of a quaver, that calmness–well, it made her words seem true in a nothing-but-the-truth kind of way.

And that really describes Bulawayo’s work and book We Need New Names: true and truth. She has a way of writing about things that one knows to be true but does not think to be true. The kind of things that you wouldn’t come up with on your own, but when spoken aloud, seem like a truth that has always been lurking in the back of your mind. This was noticeable particularly in the second section she read. That section described Darling (the narrator) in Detroit after her move from Zimbabwe. First, she is sitting there thinking about home and what home means to her different family members–they have many homes, according to her, and even though some of them are the same homes, they all describe them differently. Most of these are “before” and “after” kind of descriptions–descriptions less about the homes themselves and more about the events surrounding them, their occupancy and vacancy. Bulawayo does not describe such things with verbose, complicated language–her voice is simple and straight and sufficient for the task at hand. Later, this section transitions to the phone call Darling’s aunt is making. Her aunt is trying to place an order with Victoria Secret but the woman on the other end of the line is having trouble understanding her accent. Readers are given a taste of the frustration, a sip of the embarrassment and the degradation of being accused of not speaking (or knowing) a language that you can speak, and speak well. The words Bulawayo uses to describe the competency of the aunt’s English are particularly precise: “like it was the only language she has ever known.”

The other two portions of her book she read were equally weaved with simple truths. In the first, she talked of how people came to live in Paradise, the shantytown where Darling and her friends reside. They were desolate, they were desperate, but these were not things explicitly stated–like any good author, Bulawayo brought these words to your head by describing their possessions (or lack thereof), their families, or perhaps their children’s fearful eyes. And for the last part of her reading, Bulawayo read from a scene involving Darling, older now, calling her friend Chipo who was still in Zimbabwe. Darling found out, when she attempted to speak of it, that she no longer has the right to speak of the suffering and the turmoil going on in her home country–she is not there, she left. It is no longer her country, her home.

I highly recommend that everyone pick up a copy of We Need New Names. It is touching, insightful truth.

Friday night, calmly sipping hot chocolate, having sufficiently braved the cold walk I was at Literati for a reading in their poetry series.  Both were Michigan poets, and even after struggling through traffic jams due to the snowy weather, they expressed their happiness in being in Ann Arbor. After being introduced by one of Literati’s booksellers, John, Zach Tomaszeski read first.

All Things Dusk is his first book and he read a number of pieces from it Friday evening. I found his poems to be very relatable. He spoke about a variety of topics from farms, siblings, grandparents to the desire to become an astronaut. Apart from never wanting to be an astronaut (the concept of space is kind of terrifying and mind-boggling to me), I could relate to the instances he

captured. They were extremely vivid and clear moments. Even if I didn’t want to be an astronaut, I remember being a kid and feeling like I too could climb, the “ladder of clouds”. One of my favorite lines was in a poem about his brother and ice cream. They were at the dinner table and “two years sat between us”. I think this is a really great line because it almost sounds like a sentence people would use in everyday life. But actually he’s personifying time, it “sat” between them, and this word choice makes the difference in age a physical thing between them.

My favorite poem of the night by Tomaszewski was “The Composer Sheds Her Sheet Music”. Here’s a link to it. Throughout the piece there is nice imagery about birds and music. The ending I thought was particularly good: “the composer holds us- but we are the music- we are leaves and we are let go-”. It brings the audience into the poem which I think works really effectively. He also gave us a little peak into one of the things he’s working on now. Tomaszewski lived in Ireland for a time (which coincidentally is where I will be spending my summer!). He stated that he’s working on a poem describing a man he met there who worked, and still does, on the “haggards”. I can’t wait to see what else Tomaszeski turns out!

The second to read was Dennis Hinrichsen. His poems were very different from Tomaszewski’s, and though I sincerely enjoyed both, I liked the style of Hinrichsen’s a little more. They felt more raw and he really has mastered the art of gut-punching last lines. His daughter and wife seemed to be large inspirations for many of his pieces; so again family was a large part of his work. He also used allusion in his poems often, mentioning everyone from popular movie actress Kathleen Turner to the Minotaur. Adding another interesting element he spoke a lot about music and its relation to poetry for him. In the first piece he read Friday, he said that his four chord was “blue” and that his five chord was the “idea of cut” which he used to shape his construction of the poem’s melody. This poem was also written after he had done some reading on queer theory. He named the poem “Queer Theory” and it was a really beautiful piece about identity and desire. Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out for yourself: Queer Theory

Another of my favorites was Hinrichsen’s  “Piece for Prepared Piano with Devil in a Black Dress, or Prostate Cancer Blues”. A few years ago he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and this was one of the pieces he wrote to help relieve his anxiety. He has now been cancer free for a year. This piece once again brings in his interest in music, as can be seen just from the title. One of my favorite moments is the repetition of “the Devil and me go walking”. The Devil is further personified as the Devil also tells him riddles, talks to him and goes walking with him. It’s a really interesting piece and if you follow this link you can even listen to Dennis Hinrichsen read it! 

It was a really great night of poetry. Check out Literati’s upcoming guests if you want more events like this!

With Valentine’s Day coming up it’s the perfect time for an evening of poetry! Friday at Literati Z.G. Tomaszewski and Dennis Hinrichsen will be presenting their work. They’re both native Michigan writers! And the best part: Tomaszewski lives in my hometown, Grand Rapids MI (best known for its annual Art Prize competition).

Tomaszewski is a man of many talents, including writing, poetry, and music. He is a co-director of Lamp Light Musical Festival and helped found Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters. He won the 2014 International Poetry Prize for his first book, All Things Dusk. Hopefully we’ll get to hear a section of it Friday night!

Dennis Hinrichsen lives in Lansing and is the author of a number of works. Certain poems of his have recently been included in certain anthologies such as Poetry in Michigan/Michigan in Poetry. He has also received multiple awards, the most recent including co-winning the 2014 Michael Waters Poetry Prize.

The reading will begin at 7:00 pm on Friday, February 12th. Literati will host the event in their upstairs cafe (I can attest to the excellence of the beverages). So come brave the cold, listen to some fabulous poems, and warm up with hot chocolate!

Poetry at Literati

“A city without a bookstore is a city without a soul.” Garth Greenwell used to teach in Ann Arbor, several years ago, during the unfortunate period between the closing of Borders and the opening of Literati, when there was no place for to buy new books in Ann Arbor and even in the rest of the country, it seemed a desperate time for the bookstore. He started his reading by talking a bit about coming back here (including a shout-out to his former students in the audience) and expressing his joy that a place like Literati had sprung up in the city.

The reading was underway shortly. He opened with a scene between Mitko and the main character, the latter asking questions about the former, attempting to shift his way through Mitko’s past. There was Bulgarian vocabulary here and there, which Greenwell would stop to expand upon the word and why it was used. There was something jilted in the way he would pause to explain, as if the word had caught him off-guard, like someone else had slipped it in there. Although this was obviously not his first reading (he had previously done rounds for his novella Mitko), there was still something in these stops and in his demeanor that made it seem like he was still getting used to this. It’s most noticeable in his body language–and perhaps it is just how he always is–but he has this way of folding in on himself. There’s a hunch in the back, a slope to the shoulders, a tucking in of the chin, and not to mention the slightest of sways–it might be nervousness, or maybe it’s just a general anxious energy, it’s hard to discern the difference here.

But, whatever it is, whatever we choose to call it, it doesn’t detract from the reading. This is largely because Garthwell has a rather evocative reading voice. Many authors can read their work sufficiently–they can read it in pleasing voices that hit all the right notes, read it as it was intended–but few can really take you into the story, the moment. When Garthwell read, there was a sense of urgency, a rising panic that propelled one through the words and along the path of the story. It wasn’t the typical soft-spoken lullaby that many authors fall into, yet, it also didn’t sting or hurt to hear.  The fact that the words he was reading were beautiful (“in that foul air, I felt him identify me as foulness”) probably also helped. This was particularly noticeable in the last two sections he read (one about an experience with a boyhood friend and the other about the narrator’s sexual encounter with Mitko after a period of separation).

Greenwell took a few questions after the reading and they primarily revolved around homosexuality and literature. He talked about his experience as a closeted gay boy growing up in Kentucky and later as an openly gay teacher in Bulgaria–and how, because of these experiences, Greenwell emphasizes the importance of waiting to come out. Many people, both past and present, have taken a militant stance towards this issue: if you are gay, it is not your right but your duty to come out. However, Greenwell is more of a realist on the matter and he recognizes the issue of safety–for many, young people in particular, in can be quite a dangerous thing to admit to their world, their culture, their people that they are gay. According to Greenwell, being gay means that your life has “no value, no dignity.” This is one of the reasons that he writes books like What Belongs to You and identifies as a gay writer; when he was closeted and alone and unsure of the world and himself, discovering books like Querelle of Brest and Giovanni’s Room and witnessing homosexuality written as not something vile but real, things like this “saved his life.” Being a “gay writer” does not limit him or put him in some box and as he stated quite wonderfully, “to turn something into art is to make a claim about it, to claim it has value.”

My only real qualms about this reading and question section afterwards is that it was much, much too short.