I’ve never been much of a fan of poetry, but my opinions soon changed after a listening to a couple of poets read their material at Columbia College Chicago. The reading was located in the 623 S. Wabash Ave. building within the Hokin gallery, room 106. The featured poets for this event were Elaine Equi and Jerome Sala, a married couple both Chicago natives, but currently living in New York; I did not know what to expect. I knew very little of poetry and I didn’t have much of an interest for the art, so this was a whole new adventure for me.
I entered the lecture hall around 5:20pm on Wednesday October 26, not expecting a full house. As I walked in this dimly light room, to my surprise, there were many people, teachers and students alike eager to listen to the writings of Elaine and Jerome. Luckily I found a seat near the top of the room. After about 10 minutes, a man steps up to the podium and the whole room went into immediate silence. Jokingly, he said, “That was easy.” He went on to say thank you for being here, giving small info about how he knows both the pets, and how he is honored to be introducing them to read at Columbia College Chicago. But before the featured writers, the man introduced a 2nd year grad student named Ryan to read his poetry to us. His work was very dark, perhaps too dark for this event, looking back on it. Once finished, the man goes up to the podium once more to give us some more information about the first of the two poets to read to us that evening, Jerome Sala.
Calling him the “Instigator of the Punk Poetry Scene,” I was excited to see what was in store. He goes on to tell us his accomplishments and the books that he has written, such as Spaz Attack and the newly released Prom Night. After an introduction, Jerome Sala walks up to the stage. The majority of his poems were highly entertaining, he started off with a poem called Mother’s Day, a very incestuous piece, then went on with R-Rated Christmas, a dark and vulgar take on Christmas that was also very funny. As he went on with his other work, I really taken a liking to these types of poems, they were very different to what I thought was a poem. He also went on to saying that we worked in Ads, and even read a poem designed to look like a storyboard for a commercial. Once finished, we were introduced to our next poet, Elaine Equi.
A graduate from our own Columbia College Chicago, she was an acclaimed writer, with books such Voice-Over and Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems. Her poems I really enjoyed, they were also very entertaining, funny, and real. I connected to her work more because of the fact that they felt real. Her overall work was not as lengthy as Sala’s, they were mostly short and to the point and I really like that about her work. She read a whole series of poems based on dreams, such as one where she was sitting in a restaurant picturing others’ dreams while she looks at them. My favorite series that she read to us was the “reading books over someone’s shoulder on the bus/train.” In them, she only reads a small line of text that she could make out when she glanced at the book the person next to her was reading; these were very funny and I enjoyed them quite a bit.
Overall the whole experience was a blast. Both poets had very interesting and had surprisingly entertaining and funny work. I’m glad I went to this small reading, it was a change for me, a change that I needed. Now I can call myself a fan and go out and buy some of their books.
Luis, it's great to hear you had such a positive experience. While often I tell people not to make the review about themselves, and keep the focus on the subject, hear I think your "conversion narrative" approach works to demonstrate how these poets defy common expectations about what contemporary poetry is. Bonus points for attending a CCC event featuring a CCC alum!
ReplyDelete