POSTED: Friday, April 2, 2010, 2:00 PM
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| Photo | Patrick Rapa |
| Elise Juska |
In a bit of cosmic karma,
City Paper's rescheduled reading for its 2009 Writing Contest (our first attempt coincided with Snowpocalypse, part deux) went down at
The Tin Angel the night before our BQ feature on Philly's again-thriving poetry scene,
Philly Verses The World, hit the streets.
Senior Editor
Patrick Rapa warmed up the crowd with a piece called
"Trapped Together" about two people stuck in a sit-com, then welcomed poetry winner
Sean Webb to the stage. Webb read a selection of his work, including
"Pawnshop," the poem which won CP's 2004 poetry contest. Webb, who admitted that he'd taken a break from writing in recent years, seemed invigorated being on stage, telling anecdotes to set up pieces about his daughters (the name of his piece about teaching them to box escapes me at present) and time spent in the American West. He closed with his 2009 winner
"The Bridge" which was even more ephemeral and moving aloud.
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| Photo | Patrick Rapa |
| Sean Webb |
Fiction winner
Jessica Penzias, a sophmore at Penn, then read her dark/comedy
"Death by Oboe." The tragicomic moments in the life of an awkward young girl overshadowed by her mother's pet rabbit and moved to action by Prokofiev's
Peter and the Wolf resonated through the darkened room.
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| Photo | Patrick Rapa |
| Jessica Penzias |
After a short break,
Thomas Devaney, poet/teacher/critic who judged the poetry portion of the contest, read a selection of new and old and new work, including a haunting piece called "
Quick Bear Poem." Devaney also read
"Burning The Bear Suit," a work featured on his new site
ONandOnScreen.com which pairs poems and videos.
Elise Juska, novelist/UArts prof and CP contest fiction judge, closed the evening with an excerpt from "The Way I Saw the World Then," a short story published in the current issue of
The Missouri Review.
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| Photo | Patrick Rapa |
| Thomas Devaney |
After the applause and as drinks were finsihed, Devaney approached the CP staff present and
admitted to having a bit of gossip. He explained, sheepishly but excitedly, the story of how he and Juska (who had arrived together) are both originally from the area and have known each other forever, but when they discovered they would both be judging CP's writing contest, they decided to get together for coffee. As Devaney put it:
"We were both available at the time ... and now we're not." Aw.
City Paper: Bringing people together since 1981.
