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The New Writing Series kicked off its spring semester poetry readings with a powerful reading by Vancouver native Lisa Robertson in the Soderberg Auditorium Thursday afternoon.
The New Writing Series, which is primarily organized by University of Maine English professor Steven Evans, brings a wide variety of poets to read at the UMaine campus each semester. In an introduction to her reading, Evans commended Robertson and her works.
“In a review of XEclogue, [UMaine English professor Ben Friedlander] described Robertson’s work as tug of war between aesthetics and politics, nature and culture, in which neither side cedes ground to the other, and I share his admiration for what he calls the useful, if precarious, equilibrium that results,” Evans said. He asked the audience to “enlist in the act of receiving Lisa Robertson’s word.”
Robertson took center stage and explained her plan to read selections from one of her book-length pieces “The Weather,” as well as selections from a manuscript-in-process titled “The Man.”
As Robertson began reading, the audience was struck with the fact that her voice, while seeming thin and hesitant at first, became overwhelmingly strong and urgent in some of her poems, particularly those that stressed repetition. The powerful voice of her poetry greatly outweighed the power of her voice.
In one piece, the word “man” and “men” was repeated throughout, which allowed for the raw political nature of the poem to shine as Robertson’s voice crested and fell in pure urgency.
The new poems she selected to read from “The Man” were on par with the rest of her poetry in the sense that it was very political in its tone, but still contained a Walt Whitman-esque theme due to her references to nature.
The poems Robertson read from “The Weather” shined due to the brilliant duality of the lines she created so well. She pulled the listeners back and forth over lines that contrasted themselves in a unique and imaginative way. Many in the audience found themselves in a trance-like state as the poems unfolded.
One of the interesting things about “The Weather” is the unique way in which Robertson wrote it. While visiting Cambridge University, Robertson researched 18th and 19th century British meteorological literature. She became very interested in this literature and ended up deriving “The Weather” directly from the various manuscripts she had discovered.
During the question and answer session, Robertson explained her very unique day job.
“I write a horoscope column for a quarterly interior design magazine,” she said. “It’s a very eccentric magazine that focuses on the spaces made by very eccentric people. Lots of people in Vancouver have heard through the grapevine that it’s me who writes the horoscope. They have no idea that I’m a poet, but they’re fans of my horoscope.”
Horoscope work aside, Robertson is a very interesting poet and her unique brand of poetry is worth looking into. For those who don’t know Robertson’s work and would like to be introduced to it, there is a Web page where her work can be sampled, http://www.house press.ca/lisa.htm.
Thursday’s reading was certainly a wonderful beginning to what looks to be a very impressive New Writing Series. All are invited to attend the next reading Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 4:30 p.m. in the Soderberg Auditorium in Jenness Hall.
Bangor Daily News