The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News October 1, 2004

Oberlin hosts poetry reading

The poetry series at the New Union Arts Center started off its season with a politically-charged reading from well-known Oberlin poets Stuart Friebert and Bruce Weigl. As Professor of Creative Writing David Young pointed out in his introduction, these poets are familiar names to many members of the Oberlin community.

In the 1960s, Friebert helped found the creative writing department as well as Oberlin’s highly acclaimed literary journal, Field. Friebert taught in the German department at Oberlin and has been writing poetry for many years in both German and English. He has published more than seven books of poetry and has collaborated with Young to edit several anthologies: A Field Guide to Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, The Longman Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and Models of the Universe: An Anthology of the Prose Poem. Young said of Friebert’s poetry, “He is still going strong, testing the limits of the lyric.”

Several of Friebert’s poems were biographical sketches, narrating in colloquial prose poems the times he spent abroad—the friends he made, particularly in Germany and the sights he saw. In one haunting and sad poem, Friebert described his visit to the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Friebert also read two “animal poems” in which he used simple language to explore the mysteries of animal forms. His poem, “The Giraffe,” calls attention to the fact that giraffes have no voice boxes—unlike humans, they have no voices with which to express themselves. This poem was one of Friebert’s most successful performances as a reader: the spare and simple language focused on one theme made the poem comprehensible for audience members who were hearing it for the first time. Friebert’s sad, searching poems powerfully ask, “Why are things the way they are?”

The second reader, Bruce Weigl, is an alumnus who studied poetry under Friebert and Young and continues to reside in Oberlin. Weigl has published several books of poetry over the years, many of them receiving critical acclaim. Like his mentors, he has also edited several anthologies.

Weigl’s most well-known works are his war poems, which decry violence and recount his horrifying experiences serving in Vietnam as a young man. His recent memoir, The Unraveling Strangeness, traces his life from his hometown of Lorain through his experiences in Vietnam and then back to Ohio.

Both poets seemed to greatly enjoy sharing their craft with an audience. Friebert was a particularly good reader, enunciating his words carefully and reading slowly to give the audience a chance to absorb each poem. Walking around to stand in front of the podium, Friebert intimately engaged his audience.

Weigl also seemed to relish reading his work, and showed that he had chosen to share his favorite poems. Introducing one piece, he said, “Many of you have heard this poem, but I don’t care....”

Both poets read political poems that overtly commented on world affairs. One memorable moment that had the audience laughing was Friebert’s poem recounting a dream he had of someone rapping on his back door in the middle of the night. The man at the door has come to a small town in Ohio to escape Washington—he can’t think there anymore—so he begs Friebert to let him stay in his guest room, even if the sheets aren’t clean. Friebert’s wife recognizes the man, saying, “Oh my God, it’s Donald Rumsfeld!”

Though most of the poems Weigl chose to share were about Lorain, family relationships and metaphysics, his finale revealed his extraordinary talent as a war poet. Weigl closed with “The One Thousandth,” a piece capturing his feelings as he sees the face of the 1000th soldier that died in Iraq on TV. The poem includes some profanity, lashing out against what Weigl termed a “liar’s war.” The last line evokes many Americans’ current state-of-mind with decisive force: “We still want answers.”


 
 

   

The Review News Service: News, weather, sports and more, in your ObieMail every Sunday and Wednesday night. (Click here to subscribe.)