Outside Event 1

Last Thursday I went to Burke's Bookstore and listened to Danielle Sellers read from her latest book called "Bone Key Elegies." She read several poems to us from her book. Danielle seemed a bit shy in the beginning of the event, but seemed to get more comfortable after reading more. Her voice was soft but she read loud enough to hear well and she was really nice to the audience. She did not put a lot of emotion into her reading though, which I thought she could have done more. However, her writing was interesting and she made you feel like you were in the poem with her choice of words. She seemed happy to have as many people come in the nasty weather that was going on. One thing I noticed was she gave a abundance of pauses in her reading. This was very helpful for me because I could sit and visualize everything in the poem. I could think of all the detailed descriptions she was talking about. When she read her poem "Winter Elegy," it made me think back to my winter break and having dinner with my family during Christmas. I had a somewhat short day dream during this, but then came back to reality to hear the rest of the poem. Her poems were not long at all though. After reading some other short poems, she mentioned the next one she would read would be a favorite from Mrs. Wendy called "Manhatten Bodega." There were some people that came into the store during this reading, but it was fascinating how much attention they had for Danielle's poem. The audience members were very interested in her readings and it was showing. The room was quiet with everyone listening contently. After she had finished her readings from her book, she said she would be reading some of her love or "anti" love poems. I enjoyed hearing these poems as well because I had written some love poems for high school english all year. She only read for about thirty minutes or so, and I was really wanting to hear more from her. She would get into one of the poems and then leave you whereas you would want her to continue on, but she could not read her entire book to us. Overall, I thought she read the poems very well and I would be happy to go to another reading from her in the future.