Issue date: 3/26/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Google Images Alicia Ostriker is an award-winning poet and author of numerous anthologies. She read a number of her poems last Wednesday in the New Library Auditorium.

Poet Alicia Ostriker graced the College last Wednesday with a poetry reading in the New Library Auditorium, treating audiences to a sampling of her lauded poems.

Seated in the packed room, the attendees paid close attention to the thick details of Ostriker's poetry, listening to her beautiful pentameter, rhyme and descriptions. When reading her poems, Ostriker employed grace, conviction and a style of her own.

She used the ambience of the rainy weather to transition into her first poem, "May Rain, Princeton." A noticeable aspect of her work is that she writes about a slew of topics, including marriage, sex, religion, music, nature and even basketball.

"We all write about the things that obsess us," Ostriker said. One obsession was a favorite poet of hers, Allen Ginsberg, whom Ostriker has met. She used her poem "Elegy for Allen" to joke about a poet she looked up to, and in the end encapsulate all the passion and talent Ginsberg displayed.

A topic of great interest for Ostriker is marriage, a frequent subject in her poetry. Her poem, "He Gets Depressed Whenever We Argue," is about the struggles she and her husband go through. "All long marriages are bumpy marriages," Ostriker, who will be celebrating her 50th anniversary this year, said.

Very active politically, a section from her most recent book, "No Heaven," deals with her stance on politics and problems occurring within the nation, past and present.

A poem she read from that section, "A Voice at the Rally," elaborated on the shootings of four peaceful protestors at Kent State University in 1970. When reading it, Ostriker had a spark of anger when reading, commenting that after all these years, she was still angry about the event.

Reading the audience, Ostriker read "Fix," a poem about the problems impacting America, including debt, security, sex and consumerism, with passion and ferocity. "It's always important to have poems that will offend people," she joked.

Throughout her reading, the topics were increasingly complex. One would think reading these poems would be hard, but Ostriker seemed to have strength and courage, especially in her poem "Elegy before a War," in which she talks of her mother's death and how she copes with it.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools