Visiting writer shares 'Sharp Stars'

It's possible: poetry can be funny.

Award-winning poet Sharon Bryan, the featured visiting writer in UConn's English department for three semesters, unveiled poetry's humorous side in a reading from her recently published collection, "Sharp Stars," Tuesday at the Co-op.

"Laughing at poems is allowed, by the way," she said.

"Sharp Stars," Bryan's fourth published book of poetry was released earlier this fall and has already been awarded the Isabella Gardner Prize for Poetry.

"We've all been very excited about her new book," said Ellen Litman, co-director of the department's creative writing program. "We've been planning to have the opportunity to celebrate it and have her read here."

Bryan is no stranger to awards and prestige. Since she began her writing career, she has received awards including the Academy of America Poet's Prize and two scholarships from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has also been a visiting writer and poet-in-residence at more than 20 universities across the country.

Bryan, whose own wit mirrors that of her poetry, opened the reading with her initial concerns about how to put together her newest compilation.

"One of the hardest parts of putting a book together was figuring out what order to put the poems in," she said.

She began with the most logical choice: she opened the book with a half dozen poems that shared the notion of origins as a central theme, and the rest followed.

The first poem, "Big Band Theory," was the result of a misunderstanding of an announcement on National Public Radio about a special report on the Big Bang Theory. The piece glorified music as a possible beginning.

Bryan's next poem represented her version of the universe, a place where words came before things. "Saying Things" is her story of Adam, who heard his voice in his head and then began to speak, and then whatever idea he thought - animals, Eve, clothes - popped up once he said them aloud.

Another audience favorite was "Bass Bass," which Bryan attributes to her uncertainty about how to pronounce the word "bass," no matter the context. The title itself is up for interpretation.

"I really liked 'Bass Bass' because I run into similar problems," said Rebecca Wainacht, a 5th-semester English and journalism major, "I had never heard of Bryan before and I thought she was really good."

The tone became somber for a short while when Bryan shared her poem "Bad Days," a description of humanity at its worst.

"Each day, we add more poison to the soup we share, drain our bowls, and go back for more," she read. The feeling she had when writing and reading this poem was reflected in the tragedy of Jasper Howard's death, she said.

Bryan ended the reading with a few more witty poems. "Barking Dog" was an ode to her neighbor's dog, which sometimes barked incessantly while Bryan tried to work. "Oh Boy" was the brainchild of a few experiences viewing Shaker dancing rituals and the Buddy Holly song of the same name.

For such an acclaimed writer, Bryan admitted that she did not always plan to become one.

"I started writing as a little kid, but I didn't know how you became a writer," she said. She studied philosophy as an undergraduate and moved onto graduate studies in anthropology, but found her path to a writing career after taking a few poetry classes.

Her next work may be a work of nonfiction, though she'd rather it be poetry. "But," she said, "I want people to actually read it."