Wildness Symposium Alternative: Patricia Smith Reading in the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival Saturday Night Sampler- 09/27/08

I watched several clips of Patricia Smith reading aloud from Blood Dazzler in place of attending the Wildness Symposium, since I had to work in Des Moines all weekend long. However, the one reading that stood out the most was the reading of 34, from the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival. In all of the readings I was immediately struck but the amount of feeling her voice brought to the poems that wasn't there before. I found them to be fairly powerful and in some senses disturbing poems to begin with. But after hearing her read them, it was as if i had not read them at all. They were such different stories coming from the mouth of the woman who created them. She feels so strongly and has been so effected by Katrina, it is clear with each word that she feels a strong connection to her stories. 34 was particularly memorable to me. I remember reading that story in the book and sort of understanding it. I got that the poor elderly in the nursing home drowned because it was not evacuated. But I didn't quite realize until I heard her read the full poem in its segmented parts, that she had set it up so that we heard the last thoughts up on the roof of each of the 34 people who drowned. Some were angry at their children, as they had not come for them. Some were relieved it was almost over, while others were sure they were going to make it through. She read each person's thoughts with such feeling and emotion, you could sense the fear, and despair, and exhaustion, and tragedy of each person's last moment. It was disturbing, yet captivating. I think most of the class should try to listen to some of her poems being read aloud because it is so much more powerful that way.