ECLS Series Brings in Poetry with a Bang

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Author: Kate Bustamante

Occidental hosted critically acclaimed author Mary Jo Bang for a reading of poems from her most recent book, “The Bride of E” this past Tuesday, Oct. 4. Creative Writing Professor Martha Ronk moderated a discussion with Bang afterward, during which students had the opportunity to speak with the distinguished American poet.

Professor Ronk prefaced Bang’s reading with a statement of admiration. “I’m a fan, so you get to hear her because I want to,” she said. “What I love about her poetry is that every one of her books are different than the one before. They’re experimental.” Bang has had three pieces featured in the Best American Poetry series, a yearly publication of the year’s 75 best poems, and has won several awards for her work.

This experimentation comes not only from her meditative style, but her playful nature as well. “I use art as a way to play a game. It keeps me busy doing that,” Bang said. She created several of her poems through erasure poetry, which consists of extracting words from other texts, ranging from other fictional works to textbooks, to create a new work of art. For instance, she took Virginia Woolf’s classic novel “Mrs. Dalloway” and condensed the 300 pages into a series of six poems. Bang said she finds this form interesting because it stimulates creativity and forms something new without the author having to write their own work. “It’s the way you put words together that sound like you,” Bang said.

In her poem “Circus Watcher,” she uses a line that defines her varying styles. “Chaos fascinates me,” she reads. Her poems range in complexity and tone, and remain ever fascinating and ever changing. “Elegy,” her last book of poetry published in 2007, contains writing that expresses her struggle with the aftermath of her son’s sudden death.

“Elegy” indirectly inspired her next book, the main focus of Tuesday’s reading, as well. After writing so much morose poetry, she needed to write something lighter. Cher’s fun and effervescent musical persona inspired Bang’s poem “C is for Cher,” which describes Cher in the middle of a performance.

She then started writing poems about other prominent figures. The popularity of Alice in Wonderland in much of today’s poetry inspired her poem “A is for Alice.” The focus of her poems transformed into another game. She decided to write poems for each letter of the alphabet, and thus “Book of E” was born.

Bang changes her approach to the construction of her poems constantly, which is why each of her collections is so distinctive. For example, she decided to start writing political pieces after being told that poetry  with a focus on social issues had become irrelevant. “My poetry always has this thought,” she told the students sitting around her. “How do I get away with that? How can I get away with what I really want to do? Art is the one place you can be bad.”

The poetic form is losing popularity, according to Bang, who is trying to draw attention to the importance of the medium. “There is such a great economy [in poems],” she said. “[They are] small but there are five ways to read it…The failure of education is that we’re not able to get into the play of poetry.”

Bang has written five books of poetry and is currently working on a translation of Dante’s epic poem “Inferno” as well as on a series of new poems about the principals of different ideologies in the current, tenuous U.S. climate. Formerly a poetry co-editor for the Boston Review, she is currently a permanent faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis.

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