Last Thursday, the Writing Seminars department hosted novelist Porochista Khakpour and poet Steve Scafidi to read their respective works. The crowd was a mix of professors, enthusiastic grad students and underenthusiastic IFP students.
First up was Porochista Khakpour, an Iranian novelist who graduated from the Hopkins Writing Seminars program, where she was awarded the Elliot Coleman Fellowship. Her first novel, Sons and Other Flammable Objects, was an "Editor's Choice" of the New York Times. Or, as a fellow audience member put it, "She's a pretty big deal."
Khakpour exchanged hugs with a few faculty members and took the stage, as it were, speaking briefly about her experience and garnering laughs from some Writing Seminars inside jokes that left the poor undergraduates baffled.
She read a few passages from her novel, the stories of an Iranian-American family dealing with the paranoia of America immediately after 9/11. Khakpour explained how she had never been a "write what you know" author but was prodded by the depeartment to do so.
Khakpour's writing was intelligent, clever and entertaining - just as all those big-time reviewers said. It was obvious that her style would make for an excellent novel. There were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments for the crowd, all of which seemed to appreciate Khakpour's style.
However, Khakpour is, after all, a novelist, and not a spoken-word poet. It felt as if there was more waiting in the words that what Khakpour gave - emotion that was there, in both the book and inside her - but she did not verbally express it. Nor did she look up once during either excerpt that she read - an easy way to bring the audience in.
That is not to say we blame her. A novelist need not be a slam poet on the side, and Khakpour's writing is more than capable of justifying itself.
Next up was poet Steve Scafidi. His book of poems, Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, which contrasts nicely with his "day job:" He works in West Virginia as a cabinet maker.
Scafidi jaunted up to the stage, clearly comfortable in this environment. His grey tweed blazer's collar was a bit untucked, which was fitting for his general demeanor, which was one of familiarity and relaxed confidence.
Scafidi gave some general background about himself, saying that he was glad to be somewhere where they "take [him] seriously."
He presented his poems with an enthusiasm that really made them seem personal, not only as his own works, but easy for the listener to relate to as well. He prefaced one poem by assuring the audience that is was all true, this poem called "To whoever set my truck on fire," then launching seamlessly and hilariously into the opening line.
Later, Scafidi presented a series of poems about Abraham Lincoln with a certain "poetic license." Lincoln, for example, was portrayed as a member of the circus, among other things. Scafidi explained that his intent was to show Lincoln as a man who suffered many losses throughout his lifetime, not a mythical figure.
The crowd ate up Scafidi's casual style, loving his rhythm and jokes, but also appreciating his subtler or more serious poems. After his final poem, the crowd barely waited for Scafidi to finish his final word before applauding enthusiastically.
The writers, while vastly different in their style, both brought interesting and moving pieces to the stage. The reading of writers sponsored by the Writing Seminars department remain one of the most under-appreciated gems available to Hopkins students.
