Oct 6 - 12: Bruce Covey

Sorry guys, no pun of a title this week. I really enjoyed Bruce Covey and felt like I’d be something a punk to make a pun out of his name. I’m also going to start by warning the reader that I slightly feel like I keep repeating myself concerning how much I enjoyed Bruce’s performances. I apologize in advance.

So, to start off very stereotypically, I was surprised when I first met Bruce. Lee (I apologize if that’s too familiar of an address!!) brought Bruce into my place of employment for lunch and introduced me to Bruce. He was very polite and soft spoken. From his picture on the posters, I definitely imagined him behaving differently (don’t ask—it’s a me thing that’s hard to explain). Normally I’m somewhat apprehensive about guest presenters. It seems like, without fail, the presentation is very dry or the presenter doesn’t quite get what’s going on or a million other things that make me go, ‘oh… guest presenter… *sigh*’ However, Bruce was very approachable and that made me feel a whole lot better about the class period ahead.

In class, I thought Bruce did a wonderful job reading. He grabbed and kept my attention throughout the entire period—which is something that rarely happens during guest presentations. It did throw me off a bit when he opened the class period up with a round of questions, but after thinking that over, I decided it was probably for the best. Starting with questions allowed us to connect with Bruce and allowed Bruce to show that he is quite knowledgeable concerning contemporary poetry before he got into his readings.

I also really liked that he read some of the works of the more influential poets in his life. It gave me as an audience member a chance to spring board off a very similar place to what Bruce did to write his poetry. In my humble opinion, a similar starting point ALWAYS helps for understanding a work in new ways.

Bruce’s performance itself was also very enjoyable. Unfortunately I had to leave early for my next class, but what I saw was definitely worth going to see. I pity the poor fools that thought about going, but decided to do something else instead. They missed out on an excellent presention.

My favorite poem of his was the one where the persona was in the restaurant setting similar to Carnival (I forget what his term was exactly). To me, the story line was very relatable and slightly humorous. My favorite part was of this poem was where the persona talked about having various beverages to share… well, maybe not so much since the persona didn’t like them, but hey, the date could drink them since the date liked them! In general, I just enjoyed the concept of even writing with such a setting. It was a setting that definitely would not have occurred to me.

A very close second favorite was his poem (I *believe* the title is correct, but I’m not entirely certain) “Odds.” I felt like it was an interesting concept for a piece of poetry. The poem also had some very sobering items in the list juxtaposed with some very entertaining items.

To conclude my entry, I again apologize to the reader for sounding slightly redundant and not being very entertaining. It’s always more enjoyable for the general populous to read a rant, I’ve found, but I felt the need to share what a great presenter I felt Bruce Covey was. I genuinely had no complaints, save that he couldn’t present longer.

Fin.