In preparing to preview this, the the first VOICE reading event of the year, I took a little time to reflect upon how I had once viewed such events, by which I mean, with contempt. Who wants to sit around and listen to people reading their glorified journal entries with strange and embarrassing vocal inflections? Even after I started writing, I wasn’t all that keen this whole idea. It wasn’t for about a year of private curiosity and outward snarkiness that I finally caved in and went to a reading. At the time I was still a student at Parkland College, and I had been somewhat bombarded by fliers pronouncing the imminent arrival of Kevin Stein, our state’s Poet Laureate. Now, I don’t want to say that his reading confirmed every negative thing I have heard about poets or public readings, because it didn’t, but I will say that I left the event feeling rather non-plussed. This is what all the fuss was about? At the end of the thing, I couldn’t shake the sense that I had just attended a motivational speech.
So after this, I waited for what was probably another year before going to a VOICE reading on the U of I campus, where I discovered that (get this) sometimes people read their glorified journal entries in such a way that makes them come across as interesting — entertaining, even. In fact, I’d even say you should check one of these readings out…
Friday the 12th | 3:30pm | VOICE | Krannert Art Museum
This year’s VOICE Series kicks off its semester long run with an eclectic group of MFA students who not only have some genuine talent, but are also genuinely entertaining — although you don’t take my word for it. Read on to see how they responded to some random-ass questions I emailed them earlier in the year.
Matthew Minicucci
Third Year Student | Poetry
Where are you from?
Cambridge, MA
Anything you really love or really hate about Champaign?
Really love: the people, the food (as reported on by Smile Politely, of course).
Really hate: Aphids, my unpaved driveway, the ice deluge.
If you could have dinner/drinks with any three writers, who’d they be?
Dinner with Dean Young and Tony Hoagland, drinks with Marcus Aurelius,
because my Latin is better when I’m hammered.
What’s the most unflattering comparison your work has ever drawn?
Unflattering comparison: not sure about this one. I don’t think any
particular person has been mentioned, at least not to my face.
How do you answer folks who ask you what you write about?
I usually laugh nervously then run screaming from the room. This seems like the most honest answer to the
question.
What should we be on the lookout for when you read for VOICE?
Hand gestures, overall loudness, a complete inability to communicate without sarcasm/irony, a great reading.
Blair Croan
Second Year Student | Fiction
Where are you from?
Fort Scott, KS
Anything you really love or really hate about Champaign?
I hate that I can’t see a clean horizon until I actually get out of town.
If you could have dinner/drinks with any three writers, who’d they be?
Flannery O’Connor, Jane Austen, and Ernest Hemingway. They’d be a fun bunch to get together.
What’s the most unflattering comparison your work has ever drawn?
Truly I can’t remember any unflattering comparisons. Though I can’t remember any flattering comparisons either. This is either a comment on my memory or a comment on how much I care about being compared to someone.
How do you answer folks who ask you what you write about?
That I really hate this question because it changes depending on my moods. Though in a lot of my works there are happenings that only in occur in a small farming town.
What should we be on the lookout for when you read for VOICE?
I can almost promise that no one else will cover the subject matter that the story I’ll be reading deals with. But I don’t want to give anything away. People will just have to come and see.
Sean Karns
Second Year Student | Poetry
Where are you from?
[steely silence]
Anything you really love or really hate about Champaign?
I love that Matt Minicucci is here.
If you could have dinner/drinks with any three writers, who’d they be?
Matt Minicucci. Who else?
What’s the most unflattering comparison your work has ever drawn?
To Matt Minicucci.
How do you answer folks who ask you what you write about?
I simply say Minicucci.
What should we be on the lookout for when you read for VOICE?
A very sad man reading very sad poems, and Matt Minicucci.