By Andrea Burciu, Staff Writer
Poet Rosanna Warren read some of her work, including a few poems from her latest volume entitled “The Ghost with the Red Hat,” in Axinn Library this Wednesday. A question and answer session took place earlier on in the afternoon where students were able to question Warren on all things poetry. Warren addressed her writing techniques and brought three notebooks to demonstrate the importance of jotting down observations, memorizing poetry—to avoid “lazy psychic patterns”—and sketching.
Yes, sketching.
Warren studied painting at Yale before fully embracing poetry as a career. She went on to earn a Masters from The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University in 1980.
Warren’s poetry is influenced by her love of ancient Greek mythology and poetry, such as Sappho and Homer, partly because they embrace the cycle of life. “We’re mortals,” she said, and believes life is lived more intensely when one is conscious of his or her mortality, rather that ignoring its inevitability. Warren has studied French, Italian, Latin and Greek but “revels in the hugeness of the English language.” Interestingly, Warren read Moby Dick in Italian before she did in English. She also appreciates nineteenth century French poets. Warren encourages serious writers to become familiar with solitude and failure, as these are conditions in which writing can spring up. When asked if she knows the “answer” her poems conclude with, she said: “If I didn’t know the answer, I wouldn’t have written [the poem].”
Why write poetry? Warren uses it as a way “to look so hard at reality it becomes complicated,” and “to make people cry.” Her poem on Central Park entitled “Earthworks” depicted the park both as it is today and its origins as a slew of slaughter houses. Indeed the reader or listener cannot remain unaffected by its poignancy. The message she wishes to convey in this poem is the acceptance of mourning and joy in life.
The University’s own poet-in-Residence Phillis Levin suggested Rosanna Warren to be a part of the Great Writers, Great Readers series. Levin has a personal connection with Warren. The two studied in Italy together, though they were familiar with each other’s work in The New Yorker and The Paris Review long before they met. Levin praises Warren as a poet who “is experimental and able to inherit great patterns of the past and transform them.”
After the reading, students, faculty and fans were able to gather around for a book signing. The next writer in the series to be featured is John McPhee, featuring his latest collection of essays in Silk Parachute on Saturday, April 24.
