Poet revisits MHCC Campus

By JILL AHO

Poet Michele Glazer almost walked into a dead boar in a market in France. She said that might be an idea, but what comes from that experience is inspiration.

Glazer read poetry, answered questions and shared experiences with the audience of around 30 adults and one small child Tuesday in the Visual Arts Gallery.

A former Mt. Hood Community College instructor, Glazer now teaches poetry at Portland State University. Her best friend, Ursula Irwin, whom she met at the photocopier 18 years ago while working at MHCC, still works here teaching literature and writing.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Irwin said of Glazer. “Ideas and subjects are abundant.”

Glazer’s thick, barely tamed hair and soft, lilting voice could have been a dead giveaway as to her passion, but her intonations, which lead from sexy to bitter to sad, were the real indication of her art form. Her slow speech pattern elongated some words to keep pace with the sounds she placed in her poetry, and filled in what words on paper could not.

“I am without message,” she said to the crowd, explaining that for her, poetry begins with sounds or images. “I hope poems have meaning,” she added, but that sound and the other aspects of language “trump” the message. “You can’t separate the feeling from the idea,” she said.

This was exemplified by the fact that it was Valentine’s Day and she chose to read equal parts love and death themed works. She shared a series of poems about a dead friend named John, such as “Real Life #11.”

Glazer also read one of Irwin’s favorites, “Pomegranate.” Irwin said the appeal of this poem for her is Glazer’s description of the fruit and what the way people eat it might say about them.

Glazer spent time working in conservation, and a nature theme is recurring in her works. “Map,” which she said was a love poem tells of a way to get lost in nature without really getting lost.

Glazer’s love theme was getting at was mostly a subtle eroticism that seemed fitting for a Valentine’s Day performance.

Another of the poems Glazer performed that Irwin likes is “In Her Eyes.” Irwin described it as “luscious in language and images” and “entrancing.” With lines like “He kisses her, but only with his lips,” this poem may qualify as one of Glazer’s love poems.

Glazer recommends that aspiring writers read “everything that feeds your writing,” including works one likes and those one might not like. She also recommended participating in workshops and taking classes to get healthy critiques.

Glazer is the author of several books including “It Is Hard to Look at What We Came to Think We’d Come to See.” Her most recent “Aggregate of Disturbances,” was published in 2004 and won the University of Iowa Press Poetry Prize.

The event was co-sponsored by the Associated Student Government and the MHCC English Department.