On Thursday, April 15th, I attended a reading by the 2010 Carol Anne Donahue Poet, Kim Addonizio at Russell Sage College. Clustered into the Poetry Room at the RSC library, a group of eager students awaited Addonizio’s words. She began with a poem she found in a book as she browsed the Poetry Room before the event’s beginning. It was a poem by Phillip Shultz, who by cooincidence she had recently met, entitled Pumpernickle. The poem described the textures and consistencies of different breads; likening them to the twangs of different languages and the contrasts of varying cultures.
After her enchanting rendition of the poem, and by talking about bread around lunch time, she had captured the audience. Immediately she began to recite, from memory, Robert Hayden’s Sundays. “What did I know of love’s auustere and lonely offices?” asked the poem. Afterward, Addonizio began to talk about the signifigance of memorizing poetry. She addressed the importance of holding on to each word of a poem written by anonther, speaking it, hearing it, and liviing with it. She encouraged us to, in observation of National Poetry Month, to memorize by another author of our own choosing. Her emphasis however was not on developing a grasp on the content of a work, but on “living with a poem” and letting it become a part of you.
Addonizio said that she used to teach at a community college, where she completely dropped the analysis aspect of studying poetry and forced her students to memorize and recite. She said that it was more important to “take the poem into your body” than to use your energies “looking for Christ symbols”. This seemed certainly to be a nontraditional approach to studying the craft of poetry, but a fascinating one nonetheless. One who has memorized and recited a poem would be hardpressed to say that they have not developed their aprecation for the craft of poetry. Without hearing the music of poetry, one may never become exposed to it’s most valuble nuance: it’s sound.
Reading my own poems aloud has helped me to curtail my words. I realize that when the words don’t flow, the meaning (which I admittedly place more emphasis upon than Addonizio) is compromised. The music, in other words, is essential to the meaning of a poem. Although I had realized this on my own in private, Addonizio’s words reitierated and affirmed my technique, and encouraged me to exercise it.
Addonizio then gave the audience an overview of her background. Her father’s cousin had been the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, during which time he was indicted for extortion. It was not until she was seventeen that she found out that she was Italian in origin, and that her last name, Addy, had been “Americanized” from it’s original version to be easily pronounced. Upon aquiring this knowledge, she was determined to change her name back to Addonizio. She told us that she hadn’t met any of her extended family until her father’s funeral. Her grandfather had come from Italy to New York City and sold newspapers and shined shoes to make a life for himself in the New World. Addonizio said that there was a peculiar pattern that seemed to be universal among immigrant peoples; that the first generation held on to the ways of the old country, the second rejects the ways of the first and takes pains to Americanize, and the third hopes to reclaim the cultural identity tha the second worked so hard to lose.
Addonizio had been the third, and her acknowledgement of repeating phenomenon compeled her to write a poem entitled, Generations, which she shared. The subject of the poem was her father, who was “turning his back to the old world, fogetting.” She alluding to the shortening of her last name in the poem, refering to them the “three lovely syllables” that had been “hacked off”. The violence conveyed in her language surely mirrors her perspective on the idea of changing a family name for the purpose of assimilation.
Her rendition of the poem solidified in everyone’s minds her talents as a poet. There seemed not to be an expressionless face in the room when she was finished. It was as if her words had forced everyone to consider their own heritage; to wonder how they had become what they are today. A session of question-and-answer would follow a brief silence; the room had been exposed to this poet’s talents and had grown curious as to how they were developed.
The first question she recived was rather technical in nature, a member of the auduence asked how, in the formulation of prose writing, Addonizio goes about “piecing together the rising action.” To this inquiry, she responded broadly but insightfully that a writer must make an effort to put “gesture” before “explication”. She said that if a writer has used the gestures of her characters often enough, than the structure of the plot will form itself. This may have seemed to be dodgingn the question, but in my opinion acutely tackles the issue of plot structure. Allow your character to be truly human, and conflict will follow. Sometime, resolution may even natually trail along.
After answering this question, Addonizio went on to discuss the benefits of learning to write by reading books, not textbooks, and immitating the works of the greats. She said that she dislikes the styles of the French Deconstructionists and Modernists, because she has such appreciationfor the promise that traditional forms still have to offer. I hold the same view in regard to writing styles. I am of the mind that structure does not restrict creativity, and agreed with Addonizio when she said that “structure will set you free.” Enjoying a game depends on adhering to the rules; writing is no different. You also must recognize the importance of a rule in order to meaningfully venture beyond it. Addonizio’s words spoke directly to the writer within, and attending her poetry reading was a very enjoyable experience.
