Pleasure and Pain: Poetry and the Body
Anne Michaels, Ian Buruma, Christos Tsiolkas, Bernhard Schlink, Emily Ballou and Andrea Goldsmith poetry readings. This was my first poetry reading and I found it truly inspirational. I write poetry but I’m not sure if it is poetry. I may share some with you all on my blog one day.
I love the way Emily Ballou read – I think reading aloud to an audience is a skill and she did it so well speaking slowly, in time, with melancholy in her voice. She read Emily Dickinson and her words were truly spooky.
The poems I was most impressed with were the ones Andrew Goldsmith read: For my lover returning to his wife, Ann Sexton and The Ninth Hour, Dorothy Porter. Ann used words that caused you to feel bitter towards her lover’s wife, and the poem seemed to be almost a threat. Dorothy was asked to write The Ninth Hour to depict Jesus’ final hour but she had been diagnosed with cancer at the time. The poem was screaming with anger and the surprise and brutality of looming death. It was dark and disturbing – I loved it.
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MWF:Poetry and the body
August 26, 2009 at 4:55 am (Creative commentary, Reviews) (Melbourne Writer's Festival, Poetry and the body, writer's festival)
Pleasure and Pain: Poetry and the Body
Anne Michaels, Ian Buruma, Christos Tsiolkas, Bernhard Schlink, Emily Ballou and Andrea Goldsmith poetry readings. This was my first poetry reading and I found it truly inspirational. I write poetry but I’m not sure if it is poetry. I may share some with you all on my blog one day.
I love the way Emily Ballou read – I think reading aloud to an audience is a skill and she did it so well speaking slowly, in time, with melancholy in her voice. She read Emily Dickinson and her words were truly spooky.
The poems I was most impressed with were the ones Andrew Goldsmith read: For my lover returning to his wife, Ann Sexton and The Ninth Hour, Dorothy Porter. Ann used words that caused you to feel bitter towards her lover’s wife, and the poem seemed to be almost a threat. Dorothy was asked to write The Ninth Hour to depict Jesus’ final hour but she had been diagnosed with cancer at the time. The poem was screaming with anger and the surprise and brutality of looming death. It was dark and disturbing – I loved it.
Like this: