Lecture Entry: Josua Poteat and Elizabeth Seidel Morgan

On the evening of March 26th, VCU's English Department hosted two of their previous MFA graduates to present a lecture and give readings of their own poetry. Joshua Poteat received his MFA in 1997 and has gone on to be a published poet, with his 2004 book, Ornithologies. His poetry is visually striking and often quite humorous. Poteat finds inspiration for his poems from various sources, including the artwork of sculptor Alice Aycock. The author admits that he, "steals titles from other works", even naming one poem "Illustrating a Machine to Catch and Reproduce Ghosts" after Aycock's sculpture. Being a Richmond native, there are many references to historical events that happened in Church Hill in his poetry, including one poem about the legendary train tunnel collapse of 1921. His poems evoke images from the early 2oth century. In his upcoming book, the chapters are sorted into fictional departments in an old Sears and Roebuck Department store. In one poem under the heading "Lighting Department", Poteat imagines light bulbs created to replicate the lighting quality of 1920. Historical events and characters effectively coexist with present day surroundings.

Born in 1937, Elizabeth Seidel Morgan was one of the first graduates of VCU's MFA Program for Creative Writing. Despite her years, Morgan was bright and fiery, reliving her early poems with a sharp intensity. Her poems contain violent and barbed diction, which is apparent in a number of the works she shared. The poem "How Much Was the Most Elvis Ever Weighed?" relates a true encounter with Elvis Presley when he was 18 and she was just 16 years old. She met the legendary musician with a friend after one of his shows and her friend posed on his lap for a picture. In the poem, the author mournfully recounts that both Elvis and her teenage friend died around the same period of time, both from drug overdoses. Morgan does write about bitter periods in her life, yet never forgets her sense of humor as evidenced in "All My Friends' Pet are Growing Old". She was a delight to listen to and imparted a number of keen observation on the audience.