On 21 March, poet Franny Choi was welcomed as a reader at the Boutelle Day Poetry Center with a large, vibrant audience as she read her poems of finding love and light in the despair of current events and generational trauma.
Isabel Cruz ’24J, the Core Baptista-Boutelle Day Poetry Center Intern, took the headcount of the people physically present at the reading, reporting over 160 students, faculty, and members of the public in attendance in Weinstein Auditorium. This number does not include participants tuning in via the livestream on the Boutelle Day Poetry Center YouTube channel.
Cruz describes one of Choi’s poems as “the first haibun I’ve ever read that inspired me to try the form for myself.” She purchased a copy of Choi’s book, “The World Keeps Ending, and The World Goes On,” and followed along with the poems Choi read aloud.
Penelope Phan ’24, a student studying abroad in Singapore this semester, still made the time to tune into the livestream to watch Choi’s reading.
Phan said, “To be able to have such an imaginative poet come to Smith and to read their poetry is such a huge honor for me. Even though I watched it virtually and on a different continent, I felt that this reading was important to me because it engages heavily with queer grief and its intersection with diasporic Asian identity.”
Choi resonated with audiences across the globe and inspired relaxation and community even through poems about generational trauma, history, and grappling with identity. She said, “Sometimes I like to take a breath after a poem.”
The conversation following the reading was facilitated by Jina Kim, Professor of English and Women & Gender Studies. She and Choi were friends, and this sense of familiarity and comfort filled the room. Kim and Choi laugh about a time where they accidentally wore matching outfits.
Choi said, “It is such a joy to be in conversation with you, Jina… to talk about our shared experiences.”
Kim said, “Survival is never absolute, but we come from a people that are hard to kill.” Clapping and snaps echoed across the room.
On the relationship between community and poetic form, Choi said, “Forms point to creating and making art alongside people or in conversation with people. When we understand that all of us are writing together, we break the myth of solitary writing.”
Phan said, “I love their poetry. Their overall approach to combining a deep historical grief with poetry in such an imaginative way was done so well.”
Choi’s poem, “Comfort Poem,” resonated with Phan, Kim, and the rest of the audience. Kim said, “That poem was really speaking to me, it made me emotional.”
Phan agreed, “That one really got to me for some reason.”
Jina Kim cites Choi’s book as, “One of the most optimistic books I’ve ever read about apocalypse.”
They aim to inspire hope in a time of apparent darkness—saying that the dark is unknowable and “where possibility lives.” This sentiment carried the reading and conversation and resonated deeply with the audience.
Phan said, “Choi’s work combines a dark deep historical grief with poetry, and it’s done in an imaginative way that expresses that even though the world has ended, there are still possibilities being sprung. Even in the dark.”
Kim said to Choi, “The ways that you support and engage [within the community] are very visible and moving.”
Choi’s book “The World Keeps Ending, and The World Goes On” is for sale at Broadside Books.
