Crystal Williams Reading

On Thursday night I went to the UMMA to see Crystal Williams perform some of her poetry. She is an African American poet from Detroit and Madrid. She has published several collections of her work and currently teaches in Oregon. Her first poem was called "Ritual". In it I noticed several things that were prevalent in the other poems she read. Thematically I noticed that in "Ritual", as well as others like "Nightbloom for Jade" and "At the Water", Williams has the speaker talking to a child subject. It seemed to me that Williams was talking as her adult-self to herself as a child. This format allows for unique reflection and a personalizing quality. Also, I noticed in "Ritual" that she uses a conversational tone that makes her work easier to relate to. However, this authentic quality doesn't prevent the poems from having a universal quality as well. Her poem "This Parable, This Body" exemplified well her sonic techniques and how the performance enhanced her work. First, Williams uses a lot of repetition. This emphasized important ideas, enhanced different moods-defiance, weariness, sarcasm-and helped to establish a rhythm. Along with repetition, Williams used speed variances, pauses and elongated words (especially important ones) to establish a flow and rhythm that made the performance more entertaining. This style reminded me of slam poetry and it helped to draw me into the poems. Also, Williams was very laid back and joking with the audience which fit with her conversational tones.
Most of the poems she read were from one of her published collections called "Troubled Tongues". They dealt a lot with ideas of appearance and identity. There were several references to birds, which made me think of their symbolic link to freedom. There was also a lot of references to her own experiences, mainly dealing with her skin color. This is especially true in my favorite poem of the performance called "How to Become a Black Woman". In it she sarcastically describes how she "became black" after being raised by white parents through adoption. It was in a step-by-step format and exemplified many of the things I have already mentioned: rhythm, repetition, conversational/relatable, etc. The rest of the poems were ones that she is still working on and that were inspired by her return to Detroit. It was interesting to see that these poems were darker and more serious. Overall, I enjoyed the performance and look forward to reading more of her work in the future.