Thirty-five years ago, professor and poet Ron Wallace officially founded the University of Wisconsin’s very own Program in Creative Writing, which has since grown to become one of the best creative writing programs in the nation, named one of the top three graduate programs by Poets & Writers.
Last Thursday, founder Ron Wallace and program coordinator Ron Kuka had the opportunity to introduce two established UW creative writing professors, Amaud Jamaul Johnson and Jesse Lee Kercheval, for a celebratory reading inside a packed Wisconsin Studio at the Overture Center for the Arts.
Amaud Jamaul Johnson, a current associate professor within the creative writing program, started out the reading with his newest book of poems entitled “Darktown Follies.” Before diving into his first poem, “Black Vaudeville,” Johnson described thinking of poetry as “one side of an imagined conversation.” He also described his interest in masks and a quirky fascination with jokes that aren’t funny. And with that Johnson took the audience to a place exploring the intersection and boundaries of race and humor.
Johnson’s poem “Ars Poetica as Phrenology or Phrenology as Ars Poetica” studies the relationship between a person’s character and the morphology of his or her skull, this time with a poetic twist. Through the use of consonance and medical terminology, Johnson embarks on a journey of humor and exploration, “To wad through this muddy/ Morphology, to get all buck,” ending “when push / Comes to shove, I can get / Downright Aeolian on you, son.”
Many of Johnson’s poems dealt with serious topics such as race and power. However, he took these topics and added pop culture references with subtle flourishes of humor. Johnson’s poem “Joe Louis was a motherfucker,” allows the poet to put on a mask and shape a voice from a different persona. “You’d watch him pigeon hawk / some turkey like a titmouse, then he’d be all up on 125th armed with a / turtledove, spatted,” shows how Johnson uses the page as a stage, allowing for diction and tone to transform him into a different person.
After Amaud Jamaul Johnson showed the audience the different ways of spinning masks on historical aspects and somber topics, the audience welcomed poet and author Jesse Lee Kercheval to the podium to read from her newest book, “My Life as a Silent Movie.” Kercheval is the Zona Gale Professor of English at UW-Madison as well as the author of many novels, short story collections and poetry collections.
“My Life as a Silent Movie” is a gripping story about grief and personal identification through the lens of a silent movie. It explores the ways in which history can affect the individual. The tension between loving a chosen family versus a birth family is also investigated in great detail throughout the book.
Kercheval first read from the opening chapter of “My Life as a Silent Movie,” which introduces the story of the main character, Emma. Emma is depicted as a dedicated wife and mother, until she learns from a neighbor that her beloved daughter and husband have been killed in a car accident. After learning about the death of the two most important figures in her life, Emma falls apart and sets out to learn about her past. After much investigation, she learns she was adopted and her birth father is the silent film star Ivan Mosjoukine. The first chapter is filled with emotions and beautiful images of a woman’s life falling apart.
Kercheval then jumped ahead a few chapters: Emma is in Paris searching for her newly discovered family. While there, she doesn’t find her mother or father, but instead a twin brother, Ilya. Emma then stays in hopes of connecting with Ilya and learning more about her birth family.
After Kercheval finished reading “My Life as a Silent Movie,” attendees of the celebratory reading were filled with strong emotions of despair, but also a hopefulness that Emma might find her family again.
Both “My Life as a Silent Movie” and Johnson’s “Darktown Follies” are available for purchase at A Room of One’s Own, and both are sure to be great reads.