A Jury of Your Peers: W 10th Release Party

Readings at the Lilian Vernon House are always stately affairs, and apparently they don't make an exception for the undergraduate literary magazine launch party. On Friday, April 10, West 10 released their 2013 issue to a generous crowd of their fellow creative writing students and friends of the Creative Writing Department. This year's issue includes 22 selections of poetry, prose and photography as well as contributions by poet Gerald Stern. Of these selections, 12 were read, followed by an array of poems read by Stern.

Standing in front of peers and respected writers and reading your own work must be terrifying, and I found myself impressed by each reader's poise. That being said, I tend to like my readings more communal and relaxed, whereas this event felt oddly formal and stiff. The writing itself was solid, as should be expected when choosing among the entirety of the creative writing program. Each prose piece that was read, and the ones published in the magazine, were told in similar tones: they all felt pastoral in a way, a seemingly common thing in contemporary work. The only prose piece that really truly stood out to me, out loud and on paper, was Frances Gill's piece "Girl with Bird". The story was off beat and funny while still packing some serious punch. The only detraction was the style of the prose reading: the writer would start from the beginning and read a small portion, their "excerpt" essentially consisting of the first line and whatever came after that until a not-altogether-awkward stopping point was reached. I thought this was odd the first time, but after that I was just irritated. Many of the pieces had solid passages, sometimes included but often not, that would have made for better readings. I'm not sure if each writer was told to approach the reading this way, but I felt the actual process could have done more justice to each individual piece. The fact that we were encouraged to read along in our own copies while the writers read was also a bit odd, and resulted in the distinct feeling that I was listening to a book on tape.

Other than those few things, the reading was fine. The material was good, there was edible food, and Stern did a great job closing while keeping the crowd engaged. Nothing spectacularly good or bad, but an OK forum for showing support for our fellow students.