Plot Friday Species Summary

On Thursday, December 10th, I attended a poetry reading by Elizabeth Willis, the author of Alive: New and Selected Poems. Alice Quinn, the executive director of the Poetry Society of America opened the night by describing poems as “sonic reinvention of the world.” Willis read six poems: Plot, Friday, Species is an Idea, Bell Crew, Golden book of birds, and Alive. Out of all six poems, my favorite was Plot, which she read at the beginning. In this poem, she numbers all the events in the person’s life – she names many female names, possibly of those whom the main character had dated in the past. “What comes first?/Memory or Forgiveness?/Pen or paper?/Renaissance or reformation?/Me or You?” When she read this part, I could not help but

to think why she coined these two words together. Memory – forgiveness, pen – paper, renaissance – reformation, and me – you; these words cannot exist without each other. I mean, forgiveness is done when we cannot forget about something; pen cannot exist by itself because you use it to write on the paper; reformation mainly happened in renaissance – the period where everything started; and me cannot exist without your existence.
Her poems are light-hearted but ominous at the same time.

She slightly touches the poem with a sense of humor and then, her poem turns into something cohesive. Her serene voice was full of deep and thoughtful reminiscence of her experiences. Throughout the Q&A session, I realized how poets start their writing out of their experiences. Bell Crew was influenced by her experiences of living down in suburban Iowa where she enjoyed the rural landscape of the church, school, and farms. What is poetry? This is the question one of the audiences asked her. I think poetry is just a melted pot of freshly cooked ideas served in one plate. Willis talked how everything she writes is just a mere rough draft, but she rarely revises them, because she wants them to be honest. Sometimes, she would memorize her poem to carry the words in her bloodstream. When I was growing up in Russia, reciting Russian poetry was an everyday requirement. Sometimes, I would forget the words, become anxious, and that just led me to hate poetry. Now, I realize the essence of the ritual we were taught: our literature teacher just wanted us to breathe in the poetry and carry the words of the great Russian poets in our bloodstream. And I think that it’s never too late to start again the adventure into the

poetry.