Page 8-The Michigan Daily-Thursday, November 19, 1987

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r

Poet
art t

Twichell

I

I

hrough

her

By Marie Wesaw
Chase Twichell's first love was
painting. But at the age of 12 when
she enrolled at a boarding school,
she was banned from art classes so
that she would lead a normal social
life. In rebellion, she started to
write.
Now, with a recent National
Endowment for the Arts Grant, two
completed collections of poetry,
Northern Spy and The Odds, and
another poetry collection in the
making, the associate professor of
English at the University of Al-
abama sees the arts as "a real
necessity" having to do "with the
definition of the self and the mak-
ing of something... something that
will last in a world that won't."
"Art," according to Twichell, "is
the intimate act between the world
and the self with the basic fuel
consisting of two parts, the first
being curiosity... and the second
being a real passion for the world.

If you feel passion, it calls ft
sponse."
Northern Spy, the ti
Twichell's first collection, r
an experimental strain of app
that failed to grow but did p
one apple. In her poems, Ti
uses this apple to symbolize
growth: "As people go t
their lives, they have to leav
of themselves behind to mak
for other parts."
Twichell's second wor
Odds, is about taking risks
about rationalization... all th
we justify what we do ande
not only what we do to ours
what we feel," the author re
As a female poet, Twichell
deal with the issue of femin
her work. "The Suckling P
The Odds seems to satirize a
night out. "I hope that 'The
ling Pig' has a lot of hums
and a lot of tenderness towar
in it, but it is also inten
clobber them."
She believes that the
differences in the poetry wr
men and women, but she d
support segregating ther
separate anthologies. "Lots
differences are cultural. Und
ing those differences reii
them." By publishing anth
of literature by women v
Twichell states that there
"underlining assumption th
work could not get publishe
where."
"The Suckling Pig" is a
tive poem drawn from Twi
own experiences, yet the poe

expresses
prose
or a re- that most of her work is not auto-
biographical. "I like to know as
itle of little as possible about a poem as I
efers to sit down and write it,"she says.
le trees Poetry is Twichell's method of
roduce exploring and expressing human
wichell feeling. If there was not poetry,
human Twichell would have found another
hrough method to express the passion that
'e parts she feels artists need to express.
e room Maybe that method would have
been painting; maybe it would have
rk,The been reached through Twichell's
. "It is drum set that she has in storage.
e ways Maybe one should be thankful then
explain that there's no basement in her
self but house to practice the drums, giving
marks. her more time to work on writing
has to poems.
iism in
ig," in Chase Twichell will read from
men's her works today at 5 p.m., in the
Suck- Pendleton Room in the Michigan
ar in it Union. The reading is part of the
Visiting Writer's Series. She will
ds men also read with poet William
ded to Matthews tomorrow at 8 p.m. at
Kerrytown Concert House, 415 N.
re r, Fourth. Student tickets are $5.

I
I
I

Glee Club
The University of Michigan's Men's Glee Club will perform a joint concert with the the University
of Notre Dame Glee Club this Saturday at 8 p.m. in Hill Auditorium. Tickets are available at the
Hill Auditorium box office.

Itten by
oes not
m into
of the
Jerscor-
nforces
ologies
writers,
is an
at their
ed else-
narra-
ichell's
t states

---

Records


U


Earn 8 Credits This Spring
in NEW HAMPSHIRE
THE NEW ENGLAND
LITERATURE PROGRAM

Bryan Ferry
Bete Noire
Reprise
1985's Boys and Girls master-
fully blended Bryan Ferry's romantic
crooning with evocative instru-
mentation, making a fine con-
somme. This year, Bite Noire as-
pires to the same recipe, but the re-
sult is more like a runny stew.
Ferry has recruited just as tal-
ented a crew of performers, includ-
ing the Smith's Johnny Marr and
Michael Jackson's latest vocal part-
ner, Siedah Garrett. The studio pol-
ishes are just as crisp. So what ac-
counts for the drastic difference?
What's lacking on this effort is ac-
tual melodies, around which the ex-
vocalist of Roxy Music can wrap
his cocktail lounge tenor. Snatches
and brief flourishes of tune float in
and out of the mix, not staying

long enough to amount to any-
thing.
Add to this poverty of melody an
abundance of unsettling discotheque
rhythms, and the unsatisfying flavor
of this album is revealed.
Ferry, who has a history of
trendsetting in the vocal arena (he's
a major influence on Simon LeBon
and Simple Minds' Jim Kerr) diss-
appointingly breaks no new ground
with this.album. "The Name of the
Game" recycles the riff of Boys and
Girls' "Slave to Love," which it-
self was a rip-off of Roxy's "More
Than This." "Day for Night" echoes
David Bowie's "Day In Day Out" in
more than just the title. Garrett's
gutsy wails give the songs some
distinction, but when you get right
down to it, we've heard it before.
Bite Noire fails to live up to the
high expectations held for such a
talent as Bryan Ferry. One already
looks forward to his next project as

a sign of a recovery from apparent
creative burnout.
-Mark Swartz
The Balancing Act
Three Squares and a Roof
Primitive Man/I.R.S. Records
A splash of acoustic guitars, a
cup full of various percussion in-
struments, smooth-talking vocals...
add it all together and you've got
Three Squares and a Roof, a playful
new concoction fromn the California
songsters Balancing Act.
The Balancing Act succeeds where
others fail. Perhaps it's that unaf-
fected, boyish charm that warms its
tunes like a pair of soft brown eyes.
(Or maybe it's just that the band is

MASS MEETING
THURS., NOV. 19
8 p.m.
Angell Hall
Auditorium A

friends with fellow guitar-bred song-
ster Peter Case.) The songs are real-
istic but not grim; sensuous but not
threatening. Characters "Stay at
home to do some soul searching,"
and realize that "It's not easy being
human/but it's hard to be cement."
On "Adventure" the quartet sighs,
"We'll be... acting like little boys in
our uniforms," and on another track
just relax lazily, "Kicking clouds
across the sky."
The Balancing Act is gentle and
quirky enough to draw comparisons
to old Aztec Camera, but keeps a
wary, upbeat distance from that
group's type of dimmer outlook. But
while the band might not whine or
litter their songs with prose like
-other popsters, it does at times fall
prey to getting quirky for the sake of
quirkiness - when all it really needs
is a good, catchy hook.
-Beth Fertig
ter Inc
t4

for more information
PROF. WALTER CLARK
Dept. of English
761-9579

I I


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