The Wake

Deborah Keenan’s reading at the Weisman Art Museum, an occasion for the release of her newest work, Willow Room, Green Door delivers a large audience. The poetry reading, packed with prospective grad students, the faculty, the public and myself, was in fact a concert. Deborah cites Stephin Merritt often, using his influences in her poetry. Her relationship to music ties with her diction as she reads. Keenan twists the line in both a delicate and precise, if not surgical fashion. Such abilities, coupled with her distinct rhythms propel her poems, giving them a song-like resonance.

The composition of the reading starts first with selections from earlier poems. This delightful necessity to the reading helps newer readers grasp the history of her language. Keenan puts into context some of her poetic life history by introducing poems from her earlier books such as Happiness, Good Heart, Kingdoms, and others. Her latest book, Willow Room, Green Door composes as one long score that covers 224 pages of third-person revelations. Some of these revelations arrive as paintings of the bridges at Nine Mile Creek, while others, the sorrow of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Written in a breath-taking 2 months, Keenan displays the curiosities and sorrows of nature and humanity, finishing the book, as planned, on her brother’s birthday. Completing 224 pages in two months is quite a bit of writing—a feat eclipsed by the content. Keenan’s approach to such a feat required splitting her career as a teacher with her career as a writer. This meant writing during the summer season, a time she says she usually spends outdoors—a necessity to give her undivided attention to her poetry as well as her students.

Unable to read the poem in its entirety, Deborah Keenan makes skillful selections that represent the meaning of the piece as a whole. This “connective tissue” sets a powerful tone throughout the reading—whether it is Deborah connecting her earlier works to the new, or the prolific of the new selections to the book as a whole. The pinnacle of the reading occurs during Keenan’s reading of Research on the Color Red, from her newest book. It is a poem which plays on the relationship and struggle between nature and society. Evoking the torment of being in silent protest, the disinformation which plagues the news, “cotton clogs the gutters” equating the unequivocal of the 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of dead Iraqi and Afghan civilians to the dead soldiers who are fighting a war without direction. Often times stopping to collect herself, Deborah’s reading awakens the emotions of these horrific events. Keenan’s sincere and honest approach to her work as well as her reading should be an inspiration to all rising poets and wordsmiths. For those who have not yet been introduced to Deborah Keenan’s poetry, use this article as the first step. She is a local writer, continuing an artful tradition that makes the Twin Cities that much more enjoyable to reside in.