Chris Abani at St. Mary's

Some months ago, Kiala and I drove through the dark, deer-flanked, eerily quiet and protected streets of Moraga to attend Chris Abani's reading at St. Mary's College. We arrived late and were surprised to find the auditorium filled with an audience of hundreds. As we stood to hear his--as it turned out, fiction--reading, I wondered: who are all these people who have gathered in this corner of the world to hear a poetry reading on a Wednesday night? Did the closed-minded Moragans I grew up around develop a thirst for literature in the ten years since I left that town? Does St. Mary's have incredible publicity for its events throughout the East Bay or entire Bay Area?

As it turned out, the majority of the students were St. Mary's kids, who had been assigned Abani's novel, Graceland, for a class. The novel has won many accolades and international recognition since its publication in 2004, so it would make sense that it be assigned, and that St. Mary's pull out all the stops to bring Abani out for several days of workshops, readings and meals with the college community. Still, there was something unsettling about the situation. We had each been handed bright red half-sheets of paper, instructing us on how to be polite and active participants in this reading. The language of the papers had an air of control and hierarchical authority. Besides attending, many of the undergraduates were required to ask Abani questions about it his book; and so they sprouted a long line behind the microphone. All though most of the questions were benign, some were problematic. One student asked why one of the characters was homosexual. One student asked why so few characters spoke "real English." Abani fielded the questions with grace, introducing the idea that there is no real form of any one language--that that is just a construct--and complicating their perceptions of relationships (romantic or otherwise) between people not of two different, heteronormative genders. However, he also cracked some jokes that made me feel uncomfortable (presumably to win the favor of this sea of sheltered eighteen-year-olds). For example, encouraging one student not to be shy when asking her question by offering to turn around and then offering, in jest, to take off his clothes (playing on the cliche of imagining your audience naked when speaking in public). I felt her could have exercised a little more sensitivity in the representation of his gender in this arena.

Overall, I was happy to hear him read and get a taste of his prose writing, and I was pleased to see St. Mary's seeking him out as their distinguished author for this series. I'm sure the reading of the book and participation in the reading were critical in these students' development and thinkers and global citizens. However, I couldn't shake from my mind the privilege and control of this situation--how much money St. Mary's has to put on an event like this, and the culture it has established amongst undergrads of dictating the decorum of the event. Granted, it is important to establish a positive, respectful atmosphere--but being present at this event made me feel like I was in high school again... maybe just because I got stuck going to high school in Moraga. I'm curious to see Abani perform in another setting, to get a sense of how performers present and transform themselves depending on the genre they are reading from and whom they are reading to.