I had the pleasure of attending Camille Dungy’s reading of her three works; What to eat, What to drink, what to leave for poison, Smith Blue, Suck on the Marrow and some of her newer works. The reading took place in the Coop in downtown Storrs on Tuesday March 3, 2015. Her energetic personality immediately captivated the crowd as she began the reading with her first book, What to Eat, What to drink, What to leave for poison. One of the poems she read, “The preacher’s eat out,” spoke of early civil rights heroes in Lynchburg Virginia. She mentioned that her book is filled with poems about real life characters such as, Billie Holiday and OJ Simpson. She went into her next book, Suck on the Marrow which drew upon the life of Solomon Northrop’s story. She read a couple of chapters one being from Chapter 4 which tells the narrative of Melanie, who is one of the characters in the book. This book features different narratives of the slave, the free woman, and the free man captured from and sold into slavery.
I loved her energy and how passionate she was while reading her poems. She was so engaging and so enthusiastic about how she planned to write one thing and the finished project was something completely different or the opposite of what she initially wanted. She became so relatable and I loved when she drew on her personal stories and how she wove that into her writing. The most important advice I got from her reading was to concentrate on what you’re good and build that. But to also practice other forms because you don’t know when you’ll need it. She made me reflect on what my strengths in poetry were, and how to build on that. She said something that really caught my attention that writing some of her poems required her to be empathetic in order to really bring forth the characters and tell their stories. What I took from that was that sometimes as a writer you might have to completely remove yourself, immerse yourself in what you’re writing to be able to fully give yourself to the project you’re working on. I’m still working on finding my identity as a writer but Camille definitely taught me to be flexible and go with the flow because writing is unpredictable and you might need to jump right in and see how the finished product comes out!