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A five hour drive from Kansas through the heat into the rain of Iowa brought poets CA Conrad, Magdelena Zurawski, and novelist Aaron Kunin on Saturday, March 7th, 2009. Before Zurawski read from her new book, The Bruise, she explained the three's purpose for being in Iowa City. They “kinda invited [them]selves into Iowa City” as three friends who had recently published books and wanted to promote them through the Midwest from the south east to the north west. Originally, they wanted to read at Prairie Lights in downtown Iowa City and “harassed” the bookstore about doing so, but were turned down, so they “facebooked” a friend within the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and scored a reading at the Shambaugh House.

The evening kicked off a little after seven with CA Conrad reading from his newest book of poetry, The Book of Frank. His bright green shirt and matching sparkly nail polish set the tone for his poetry. The sexually humorous poems were well received by the small audience filled with individuals who all seemed to know one another. “My architect asked me to stop calling him my architect,” was just one of the many humorous lines from Conrad’s exercises. Each month he puts a new exercise on the internet for ‘how to write a poem.’ The one for this month is to soak a penny in lemon juice and then place it under your tongue. From there you are to go sit on a bench outside for hours and not be bothered. If you are bothered by someone, you are to tell them “shut-up, I’m busy” because “you’re a poet with a penny in your mouth.” Another exercise that Conrad follows while writing poetry is starting a poem off with something someone has said to him that day.

As Magdelena Zurawski took the podium, she moved the “art/gas money Easter Basket” before she began. The dim, one-lamped room was the perfect atmosphere for the narrative poetry that soon followed. The repetition of the same idea in several sentences through switching the same words around flowed smoothly as Zurawski quickly read her words. Her change in attitude came as a bit of a surprise. She went from laughing uncontrollably during Conrad’s reading and smiles while explaining how they came to Iowa City to a somber and nervous woman who didn’t look up once while reading. I attributed this to the seriousness of her work. Before reading, Zurawski explained the narrator’s want of a physical relationship with another character in the book. By the end of excerpt the audience finds out that the two characters are both women. She addresses this topic in a serious matter, so I think she felt the need to be serious while reading.

The night ended with Aaron Kunin reading from his novel The Madarin. This was the only reading of the evening that did not refer to anything sexual, amusing or otherwise. Right off the bat I noticed that he stammered while reading. I was not sure if this was intentional to the tone that he wanted to set for chapter two, “The Newspaper,” or not. “The newspaper wants you to know stuff, but not to do anything” about it, was the general summary that Kunin gave while explaining his piece. Kunin achieved humor through the use of obscure descriptions and dialects of a caterpillar within the scene of the chapter.

The night projected and provoked many different feelings and thoughts. Word placement made you chuckle, made you analyse, and made you consider. I believe that the order of the readers was just perfect for what they were trying to do: entertain on all dimensions. Conrad grabbed our interest with the use of sexual humor within his poetry. Zurawski attributed the needed ‘sad moment’ in everything we experience. And Kunin presented an abstract idea through a bit of laughs and the use of the recent knowledge of the newspaper’s extinction. The three’s performance provided all the ups and downs I would want from a movie.

-Annemarie Chambliss