"The Intruder"

The first word that comes to mind in describing Jill Bialosky’s poetry reading is “quiet”. The second is “awkward”. Neither of these is the hallmark of a great poet. On Thursday, February 26th, Bialosky read poems from her recently-published volume, “Intruder”. According to Bialosky, her poetry examines the nature of love; she also pointed out that she was examining poetry writing from different perspectives. Personally, I couldn’t tell one poem from the next in terms of perspective; with names like “The Poet Contemplates Her Role”, “The Dream Life of the Poet”, and “The Poet Discovers the Significance of the Old Manuscripts” (quite a mouthful, that one), I don’t know who Bialosky thinks she’s fooling, but it sure wasn't me.

In “The Poet Discovers the Significance of the Old Manuscripts”, Bialosky tells the story of a female poet of roughly her age (which I’m sure was a real stretch) reading Chinese erotic manuscripts that, as the poem describes it, “wanted to devour the reader with desire”, whatever that means. Bialosky’s inspiration? An experience she had when reading exactly those Chinese manuscripts at the Smithsonian. How creative.

Bialosky’s interactions with the audience were sparse; she spoke only to preface her poems (often ruining their plot twists in doing so), to talk about herself and the experiences that led her to write certain poems, and to read her poems. Bialosky didn’t really relate with her audience, aside from factually pointing out that she had, indeed, attended the University of Iowa, before returning to talking about her poetry and all the wonderful things she’s written.

Her poetry was a little less than impressive; several times, Bialosky mispronounced words, the clear hallmark of someone using a thesaurus. Her unimaginative “exploration” of relatively everyday things (like books, skiing, and nature) was less than insightful and certainly not original, and because of this her reading was less than ideal.

By: Mike Sowell