Tonight, I attended the 1718 reading at the Columns, where Mukoma Wa Ngugi read excerpts from a few of his novels. The reading also featured our very own Jerome Keith!
I generally love the Columns hotel, but found myself incredibly frustrated the entire time by the very loud door and the very rude guests who kept leaving--I was just leaning over to whisper-complain about the annoyance to my friend when a random, sneaky alarm went off on my phone, allowing the entire room to experience my Sex & The City ringtone. It was on Do Not Disturb mode!!!!! I turned red and sweated a little bit. It was tragic.
Other than my super embarrassing moment, I found the entire experience very interesting. How do I get involved with 1718/hear about their events?? Anyway, I tried to sneakily take notes the entire time, and here are some of the things I wrote down.
Jerome was the first reader that I saw. Jerome-- I came in halfway through your piece, so I didn't get to hear much of it, but you have a wonderful voice for speaking in front of people! I enjoyed the parts that I did get to hear.
The second reader was a boy, whose name I cannot remember, who also happens to be the first student at Tulane with autism who cannot speak. The piece was especially interesting because it was read off of a computer. The piece described autism as a gift you can't return. I thought the idea, as well as the many examples and metaphors that followed, were a quite beautiful portrayal of the way he felt about being autistic. However, I thought the piece could benefit from being turned into more of a conceit than just mentioning many comparisons over and over. On the other hand, it was pretty difficult to hear in the back, so maybe I missed out on something that was along those lines.
The third reader was a girl who read a selection of poetry she had written. Her choices were interesting, and did not relate to each other at all-- I thought, because she was only reading 5 short poems, that she would read a selection that all followed the same theme. This was not the case. Instead, she picked one about a wire hanger abortion (which was a "poem in reverse," a concept I am fascinated with), a dark poem about herself, two I can't remember, and the final poem, which was the most memorable, a comic piece about a dream she had about baby horses. She had wonderful descriptions and word choice, but I found her presentation style somewhat abrasive considering the topics she was reading.
Finally, Mukoma Wa Ngugi took the podium, and read excerpts from his novels Nairobi Heat, Black Star Nairobi, and one that was poems. I was most interested in his novel Nairobi Heat. It takes place in Madison, Wisconsin, where an African peace activist takes a position at the university. When a young girl is found murdered at his doorstep, local Detective Ishmael takes on the case. The most interesting thing that Ngugi said that stuck with me was when he was reading the final page of Black Star Nairobi. The final word in the book is "Why?" He then laughed and said, "I always wanted to finish a novel with 'Why?'-- Why not?"
My favorite part of the excerpt he read from his book was when he was describing one of the character's voices, and said "her words and her voice became an instrument," and described many voices talking together as an orchestra. I thought that was a beautiful way to describe loud voices talking, especially because I could hear the chatty guests of the hotel through the door the entire time. It made the loudness outside the room sound less annoying; it made it beautiful.
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