Cultural Event #2: Mary Rolling Reader Series presents Nicole Cooley and Julia Kasdorf

                On Thursday, April 5, I attended the activity in the Foster Auditorium hosted by the Mary Rolling Reader Series.  Two popular poets were presented, Nicole Cooley and Julia Kasdorf.  I typically describe myself as having an interested in poetry.  In fact, most of the time I think it is boring if it isn’t used to describe romance. However, in class Miss Squillante mentioned that Nicole Cooley survived Hurricane Katrina and was reading poetry on her experience.  This caught my attention and intrigued me to go.  I figured; why not give it a try?

Between Nicole Cooley and Julia Kasdorf, I was more interested in Nicole Cooley’s poetry because it explained the difficult situations she faced as she survived one of the most destructive hurricanes known.  I found Julia’s poetry to be more about her daily life which didn’t catch my attention as much.  Nicole used specific and very vivid detail to portray her constant combat. 

In her poem, The Evacuation, she explained day by day dreadfully yet descriptively through her tone and comparisons.  For example, she went through the process of how she had to file a missing person report or update for of her lost parents.  Also, she compared the sky in New Orleans to the ‘911 Sky,’ which left me when a sense of melancholy, cloudy image.  

                My favorite poem Nicole read was Write a Love Letter to Canilia Grill.  Canilia Grill was one of the popular traditional family restaurants in New Orleans.  The grill was closed because of destruction from the hurricane.  After it was closed down, people put posted notes on the door and wrote about what they loved about the restaurant.  One day, Nicole walked by and copied down all 500 posted notes.   This poem contains many of the notes that Nicole copied down.  People wrote about their memories of having been in that restaurant and traditions such as eating their after getting married or going on their first.  Others wrote about their feeling of being lost without this traditional hub or how they wished to bring their future children there.  What I loved about this poem the most was the idea behind it.  Nicole expressed how not only the restaurant was lost, but most importantly, the tradition was forever gone.

                 By listening to Nicole read several poetic memoirs of her traumatic experience, I really got the feel of how gloomy and lost New Orleans was after Hurricane Katrina. She left me with rich imagery by describing New Orleans as the “tour of the gone” and how houses were marked with an X if it was already inspected or a number to represent how many people were found in that house.  Overall, I am happy I went because I really got to broaden my perception of poetry nonetheless listen to a firsthand experience of surviving Hurricane Katrina.