Series A Reading Featuring Kimberly Lojek & Aaron Fagan

Tonight, down at the Hyde Park Art Center, was the year's first Series A reading. Nine people showed up: 2 readers, 4 friends of readers, 1 radio tech, 1 curator, and me. Needless to say, I quickly became a curiosity, but that's neither here nor there.

The Series A readings is put together by poet, Bill Allegrezza, who, after recently having a baby, handed the reigns over to local writer, Kristy Odelius (whose poems I am quickly becoming enamored with, you can read them here: http://members.aol.com/kodelius/poems.html). Odelius pieced together an interesting union of voices in Kim Lojek and Aaron Fagan, Midwest, East Coast and both leaning towards the momentary.

Lojek's poems often leave you feeling scattered. Having read everything I could find online, I was excited to hear her read them herself. Her sentence structure is stuttering, and most times, hearing the poet perform the poems sheds light onto the rhythm, and opens up interpretation a bit. The thing was, though, you couldn't hear her...at all. I was sitting 6 feet from her and had to lean in, then take off my stocking hat, then turn my head. What I did hear was great, and fortunately, I was able to pick up on the cadence of her voice, even if I couldn't pick out every word. Definitely find some of her work, she's a good ol' Iowan, and on the cutting edge of "experimental" verse.

Aaron Fagan's voice carried a bit more and he read a great poem called, "Monopoly, Toledo" (which can be read here: http://faganism.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html, directly under the looney tunes poem). I don't know if it was because I knew he was from New York, but his poems seemed very New York School to me. The referencing of artists, odd spaces, abstract conversations, and how all those things build up a nice little surrealist package. He had thick, dark hair that he combed straight back, making him look like he might be from the Jersey school, but that joke was lame and I'm already sorry I did it.

Anywho, check out as many of these fine people's poems as you can...but you don't have to take my word for it!