Wesleyan poets share their unique voices with students by Alexa Steinberg Contributing Writer This year’s Wesleyan Student Poets read of faith, water, philosophy and magazines on Wednesday evening at Russell House. Approximately 30 students submitted five pages of poetry to Professor of English Elizabeth Wyllis, earlier this fall. From the five honored, Ross Middleton ’03 was selected to represent the University on the Connecticut Poetry Circuit. The poets read in alphabetical order, starting off with Lauren Kirchner ’03, who first spoke of the affect her major in Philosophy has had on her poetry. “I write a lot about ‘what’s knowledge?’ ‘what’s truth?’ But not in such a pretentious way—more like ‘when are we going to sit back and realize things are not perfect?’” Kirchner said. Kirchner read her poem entitled “Our Errors,” which started with, “I’ve decided that we talk too much,” and contained the line, “I would like to be less careful about most things”. The poets discussed the human figure, in particular the female figure. For example, Lynn Levy ’05 described breasts as moons, while Evan Calder-Williams ’05 seemed to call back to her in one of his poems, asking, “Would I call these moons?” Middleton described a woman’s body, while coming across a dune, as “spandexed slow I noticed her metal detector and set out my debris.” Rachel Schiff ’03 described women as seen through the eyes of men. “It’s hot pizza melts on men who melt over women behind counters,” her poem began. Middleton noted that he had initially pondered his role as a homosexual poet, and whether he should identify himself as such. “What does it mean to be a gay poet and do I have any obligations to bring politics into it…and I decided no.” Middleton wrote of people standing “at the lip of the yard…the rent is low you ate a shrimp.” Another one of his poems was titled, “Reading Vanity Fair in Five Minutes,” which, raced through names and articles, and the question, “where is my name?” “These ones—they eat a lot of butter,” it concluded. Calder-Williams began his reading by stating that he does not like to say the names of poems while he is transitioning from one to the next. “If I seem to be really melodramatic it’s the end of a poem,” he said. He titled one of his poems, “Funeral Instruction: First Variation,” which shared clips of life such as “my chariot tendencies clutching handbags.” Levy’s poems dealt with both honest portrayals of the human form and the surrounding metaphors. Lines from her poetry included “I mean opened for like a loaf of bread,” “the snot in my nose the universe is getting fresh with me and I think I like it” and “The sweater the color of fingernails.” One of the poems by Calder-Williams, titled “Promises,” contained the line, “O haunter I am lonely,” which called to mind the omnipresent poetic muse of the evening’s activities. This is the 34th year that the University has been a part of the Connecticut Poetry Circuit. Both Calder-Williams and Schiff were Wesleyan Student Poets last year as well. Poems by the five students will be bound and offered for free at upcoming Russell House events.

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