Review: Donna Stonecipher Poetry Reading
On a cold and cloudy October evening, a group of poetry enthusiasts gathered in the cozy Slonim Living Room to listen to poet, Donna Stonecipher read some of her work.
“I’m going to read from my most recent two books and some new poems,” Stonecipher said leaning into the microphone, “I have not set foot on this campus in 29 years, so longer than many of you have been alive. It’s great to be back. Chris took me on a tour of my old dorm room yesterday and there are some changes, and some things are just the same.”
Stonecipher received her BA from Sarah Lawrence in 1991. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop in ‘01, and in 2011 she earned her PhD from the University of Georgia. She moved to Berlin in 2004 and the subject matter of her poems began to focus on German cities and how they change and acknowledge their past. She is also well known for her translation work, and incorporates the German language into many of her poems.
The New York Times named her 2018 book Transaction Histories one of the ten best poetry books of the year. “Stonecipher’s credit that “Transaction Histories” is a delight: a mordant yet romantic survey of art, love, hunger and plastic owls in which seemingly unrelated observations are meticulously knit together to form a resonant whole.” writes David Orr of the New York Times. Stonecipher has five published books of poetry: The Reservoir, Souvenir de Constantinople, The Cosmopolitan, Model City, and Transaction Histories. On this Wednesday night, she chose to read selections from Transaction Histories, Model City, and an unpublished book, Ruins of Nostalgia.
Transaction Histories was written in prose form, which Stonecipher as well as the New York Times commented on. Orr of The New York Times writes, “The prospect of a book filled with prose poems is admittedly better than the prospect of a book filled with thumbtacks, but not by much.”
“I mostly write prose poems, and these poems look like this,” Stonecipher extends her arms and shows the audience the paragraph style writing, “It doesn’t matter you can’ t read the letters, you get the idea.”
The poems are numbered and somewhat linear. One of the lines that struck me was in number 3. Her calm, controlled, and purposeful voice filled the small room,“We wished the factories were still factories: we were hungry and dirty, we wanted bars of chocolate and of soap, something to suck on or take home to wash off our wistful, well-earned ennui.” The change that the city of Berlin undergoes is so present in her writing, it almost becomes a character in itself. Visiting a place one once knew and returning to find none of the same memories is something many can relate to, and is so relevant in the modern world.
Model City was painting a similar picture as Transaction Histoires, playing with difference in time, and evolution of cities and communities. This book is also divided into numbered prose poems. One poem that Stonecipher read that got one of the biggest reactions and was especially moving to me was number 16. Such a simple thought that had never even occurred to me, but once it was said the idea was cemented into my brain. The poem is too beautiful to choose one quote, so here is the whole poem:
It was like going to an exhibition where all the artworks are about melancholy, and falling into fits of uncontrollable laughter, especially before a case of little ivory skeletons “intended for private reflection.
It was like looking at the faces on those skeletons and asking yourself why skulls are always grinning like that, what they have to grin about, and then realizing we are all always grinning like that, under our faces.
It was like feeling that grin under your face at all times, even when you are sobbing, or expressionless, reading a thick book late at night next to a dark window: there you are grinning, despite yourself, down at the book.
It was like leaving the melancholy exhibition nearly sobbing with laughter, picturing the memento mori, the tiny skeletons in some noblewoman’s gloved hand, as she privately reflects, secretly grinning.
The audience giggled, and clapped, some saying ‘Oh!’ later than others as they realized the meaning of her words. Stonecipher smiled,“I have to apologize for that one, people tell me afterwards they cant get that image out of their heads.”
The reading was intimate and comfortable. Stonecipher’s words echoed through the small stone room, and audience members left with the corners of their lips turned upwards.
Maggie Cole ‘21