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Writers explore the darker side of love

by Tom Carpenter
The Daily Cougar

A parade of poets from The Honors College explored the infinite dimensions of love to celebrate Valentine's Day during the first spring presentation of Poetry and Prose at the M.D. Anderson Memorial Library on Thursday.

Sponsored by the UH Libraries and the Creative Writing Program, Poetry and Prose provides a forum where veteran and novice writers can read their works to an appreciative audience.

"I think this is a terrific forum for the University," Honors College Associate Dean Bill Monroe said. "It allows people from different departments, different backgrounds and different disciplines to have an opportunity to display their writing talent. Poetry is something that's good for the soul."

Honors College students Cheyenne Bsiaes, Chris Brunt and Elizabeth Wesson opened the reading with original works. They were followed to the podium by the Honors creative writing instructor John Harvey and lecturer Gary Hawkins.

"Aspiring poets should always accept that there are boundaries to be broken," Harvey said.

In a strange coincidence, all the works the poets chose to present at the reading explored somber aspects of love, like separation, loneliness and distance between lovers.

"They're poets. They're to be forgiven, as Plato says," political science professor Ross Lence, who attended the reading to hear his students, said. "They know not what they do, and I don't either."

Honors College faculty member Artis Bernard explored the aspects of distance and loneliness in her poems "Stockyard Café" and "Watching You Swim."

Monroe demonstrated the timelessness of poetry when he read three poems written by a deceased friend: "Slow Death," "In Fall Reading Hawthorne Without You" and "Lodging."

"Love has many sides to it," library host Edward Lucasek said. "I think it just happens that the people that came together tonight had similar explorations."

Honors College Dean Ted Estess capped the evening by reading from "Losing What You Love and Getting it Back," a narrative he wrote examining loss and separation in honor of a former Honors College student who died in a car accident.

"Loss, distance and death. It's not the kind of stuff that will make you run out and get a date," Lence joked at the conclusion of the evening's readings.
 

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