Spring Break
R.I. Poet Laureate shares poetry, advice at READ/WRITE series
Annie-Laurie Hogan
Issue date: 3/7/08 Section: News
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"My poetry doesn't come from an academic place, it really comes from my heart," she said.
Starr shared her sentiments and several of her poems yesterday as part of the University of Rhode Island's READ/WRITE series and International Women's Day. About 50 people attended the event.
Starr said writing helped her cope with her parents' deaths. "I wrote my way through my father's death and my mother's," she said. "Language is really for me a way to continue to live."
Starr read poems about grief, friendship, family and nature from her two published collections, Days of Dogs and Driftwood and This Place Here.
Her short poem, "For Mary Kane," addresses a friend experiencing distress.
"As I lie here/ listening/ to the waves/ yawn/ into roars/ I'm sorry/ that you/ live in a place/ where the ocean/ sounds like traffic," Starr read.
She also read a humorous poem addressing her friendship with her dog, which was titled "Since the Baby."
She read, "He leans a little further against me / and together we share a moment / of perfect friendship / while upstairs in a sweet green room / the baby begins to stir."
Her poem, "But Because," expressed the feelings she experienced when she moved to Block Island: "Because I was not born with wings and feathers / this time around / I can only stand on the pilings / at the edge of the dock / for a few moments at a time / before I lose my balance."
URI English and women's studies professor Karen Stein also spoke at the READ/WRITE, focusing on British novelist and Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing.
"As a woman and an author, Doris Lessing has repeatedly reinvented herself," Stein said.
One of Lessing's well-known works is "The Golden Notebook," a novel that explores women's frustrations and fragmentations, according to Stein.
"It was one of the early feminist novels that paved the way for others," she said. "Her novels pose the question 'what if' and examine different social orders that might be possible."
Stein also discussed one of Lessing's popular short stories, "To Room 19," a story about an intelligent and attractive woman who loses her sense of identity when she devotes herself to her family. The character hires a nanny to take care of her children and rents a room in a hotel where she sits by herself. She later commits suicide. The story addresses the problems women encounter when they rely on human intelligence as a means of forming their identities.
Starr encouraged students to attend the 2008 Block Island Poetry Project, a month-long series of poetry readings and workshops in April and May. The sessions are free for Rhode Island students. More information can be found at www.bipoetryproject.com.
The English department will host the next READ/WRITE on Thursday, April 3. The event will take place in the Hoffman Room in Independence Hall from 4-6 p.m., and will feature poet Stephen Cramer and fiction writer Jody Lisberger.
