The Mill and Seth Abramson

On this cold night of March 11th 2009 I ventured to Iowa City’s The Mill for my first night of “Talk Art” which consists of works by the members of Iowa’s Writers Workshop. I was lucky I chose to go on this night because I had the pleasure of listening to a few short poems by Seth Abramson. In general, Seth’s poems were fast paced which caused me to pay close attention during his readings. I’d like to say the majority of the poems he read tonight were in free verse but due to his rapid speed-reading I was not able to focus too closely on any specific forms he may have been writing in. What I did notice however was his subtle use of rhymes in the first few poems he read.

One thing I really liked about Seth’s poetry was his use of more informal language. He does not fill his writing with flowery words, which I feel can sometimes take away from the poem itself. All of Seth’s poems got down to the point and I felt that made them more relatable and also more enjoyable for me to listen to. One line that I felt said a lot in a few words came from the poem “Three Cuts”. Seth wrote, “It’s not easy spending a life time spending a lifetime”. It was brief lines like this that made Seth’s poems so powerful.

Another thing that is to be noted about Seth’s poetry is his ability to focus on the characters in his poems and develop them in only a few stanzas. During his reading Seth told us in the audience that the poem “Three Cuts” was not about him, he said that since the poem is about a lawyer that most people assume he wrote it about himself. It was made clear soon after he started reading the poem why he did not want people to think it was referring to him, the poem was about a virgin lawyer and all the barbers in the shop knew he was a virgin too.

One poem that really stood out to me in terms of its character development was the last poem Seth read, and possibly his best poem of the night, “Final Boy." The poem is about a letter a man wrote to his wife and son about why he is leaving them. But “Final Boy” then dove into deeper issues like the choices in life that a man sometimes has to face in regards to women and children. All in all I honestly enjoyed listening to Seth’s Work, and he made my first experience at a poetry reading a positive one.

By: Audrey Thar