Carson Reading in Cemex

I loved this reading. Carson walked on stage and everyone was clapping. The clapping stopped before she got to the podium and she turned and told use to keep clapping, it was very funny. Carson started by reading some poetry by an ancient greek poet, Sappho I think, that she had translated. Some of it was very funny, some of it was very dark. Carson was very deadpan. Then she read an essay she wrote about Proust, which was essentially a collection of fifty nine thoughts she had about his work. The essay was at once insightful and hilarious. Again, Carson was entirely deadpan. It was a very cool approach to literary criticism and made me want to read Proust, despite the fact that it took Carson years and years to get through his novel. Carson immediately struck me as a very emotionally mature and intelligent person. She was well dressed and seemed to be very in control of herself. I had read 'The Glass Essay' before, I was surprised by her in person, I didn't expect her to have such a wonderful sense of humor. I expected her to be like Sylvia Plath or something. 

Carson then read some of her own work. She read a poem about a daughter and a dying mother that almost made me cry. Then she said, 'that was sad,' and had everyone in the audience participate in the last two poems she read by shouting the last words. This was probably one of the best readings I've been too. Carson seemed like the coolest lady ever. I felt myself wanting to be able to do her some kind of enormous favor, wishing I could run into her at the grocery store with way too many bags and help her with them or something, I don't know. For about an hour or however long the reading was, she owned the entire audience. Everyone was clapping at the end, she shyly sat down on the stage and started talking to Eavan Boland. We were all still clapping, she looked up and said 'you can go now.' Again, very funny. This reading just made me wish I had had enough free units to take a class with her this year. This talk definitely made me a big Carson fan, she was great.