Poetry Reading with Rachel Loden

Way back in March, I sat in at poetry reading in the campus' Hokin Hall. There were three poets reading that night. As I sat in my chair after a long day of classes I couldn't help but sense a difference in the atmosphere from the last reading I attended in Hokin Hall. The lights were much dimmer, there was less of a crowd, but they all seemed to know one another. I almost felt like an intruder.

The readings began with a poem by Columbia's own Lief Haven. He read a poem inspired by Roy Lichtenstein, titled "Empathetic Transitions". It read like prose and contemplated philosophy, asking, "if this is this and that is that, then what is what?"

Next on the bill was long time Columbia faculty member Tony Trigilio, who also served as the MC for the night. He read from his latest book Historic Diary, a collection of poems and prose inspired by American culture and the dairy of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man convicted of killing JFK. To write these poems Tony actually went to see the house where Oswald was apprehended by authorities. One of his poems was an assortment of lines quoting the movie Manchurian Candidate which apparently gave Oswald the idea to kill the president. Another was written from the point of view of Oswald's eldest daughter Ruby on the day her father's death sentence was carried out on live television. His words were strongly arranged and provided an interesting look at a part of American history that I had never really payed much attention to.

Then Rachel Loden, the featured poet read. Her latest book was also inspired by political history of the United States, but her poetry was centered around her "unwanted muse", as she called him, Richard Nixon. Her book is called Dick of the Dead and it explores her personal take on how Nixon became our country's own, "mystical father who bestowed on us the paranoia of the 21st Century. She began by telling us that she wrote the first poem the night she'd heard Nixon died in 1994. My two favorite poem are one she wrote about Nixon's dog Checkers and one she read called "How to Fuck an Angel". I liked the way she read her poems, with more rhythm and reeling highs and lows. They sounded nothing like prose.