Each semester, the Plutzik Reading Series brings in one prose and one poetry author to read for the University community. Representing the poetry side of the series, poet Catherine Barnett became the next addition to the reading series on Tuesday Sept. 16.
She began the reading with excerpts from her new book, “Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space.” Discussing loneliness, loss, and the desire for connection, Barnett’s work contains a spoken-like quality which transports readers and listeners to a place where being alone is peaceful and fear can subside.
Her piece “Restricted Fragile Materials” illustrates this beautifully: “It’s not illegal to want to hold on. / To get to my archives, / my son will have to put his ear to the ground, // listen for a quiet scream. / And beneath that, like groundwater, / the endless chatter // of praise and lament. / How will I tell him the river I / feared to drink from // has come to drink from me? / May he, too, have fair winds / and following seas.”
Barnett is open about her struggles being a kleptomaniac. Her desire to take and steal has changed to borrowing from other artists and creators. Her work often features allusions, quotes, or mentions to history, past works, and people, such as her poem “Where is to think is to be full of sorrow,” which takes its title from John Keat’s “Ode to a Nightingale.” The poem speaks on the loss of Barnett’s father, but also her struggles with kleptomania, or as she says, “what belongs to whom and who gets taken from whom.”
Her book contains multiple fragmented lyrical poems titled “Studies in Loneliness.” These came from a series of talks she gave to college students, discussing how loneliness is common, and how she feels it too.
Barnett possessed a grounded, calm, yet complex air when presenting her work. Her voice was soothing, her thoughts intriguing. During an audience Q&A, Barnet admitted that she feels uneducated and underread when compared to many other writers; she came into poetry in her thirties after working in journalism, which makes her feel like she is constantly trying to catch up with the historical poets and works. She claims she does not know the tradition, and, as opposed to writing in form, she writes in more narrative styles.
Recently, her work has focused on the political atmosphere and judicial hearings in the United States. She also has begun calling into the D.C. District courts and hearing the trial proceedings.
In “Infinite Responsibility,” her love poem to a judge in the D.C. District courts, Barnett discusses how she would call in to feel a part of something bigger, to feel calmer in this time of turmoil: “You are entering the meeting now. You are the only participant.”
