Poet Bruce Weigl reads published work

In a poetry reading Tuesday, Bruce Weigl read samples from his personal collection of poetry to convey the expression of humanity in literary works. Weigl first read a series of published works in which he discussed the emotional effects of the Vietnam War. He described the struggles of war and how it relates to the struggles of daily life in samples from his collection, called "Psalm of Napalm." Through this set of poems, Weigl told readers how the Vietnam War changed the definition of the word humanity by introducing Americans to brutality they had never before seen. In his reading, "What Save Us," he analyzed the internal change Americans went through during the war period. Weigl explained through his works, Americans at the time struggled to balance the newfound knowledge of the violence of the conflict with the glorified image of war. Weigl said he feels "it is simply our humanness that saves us." Treating the audience to samples from his unpublished collections, the new poems examined how parents traits are passed to their children. Weigl stated that expressing the balance between the good and bad aspects of our society makes literature a form of "therapeutic art." But he stressed that "there should be some emphasis on the bad traits." Tuesday's reading was sponsored by the Philomathean Society and the Writing Program. Weigl's clear and concise prosaic style appealed to the approximately thirty listeners, they said after the readings. "He simplified the different, intricate, complicated, and unsettling themes and created an image that you could actually see and appreciate," College junior Bob Comis said. The descriptive expression of personal events also appealed to Tim Lodge, the event's organizer. "He's really wonderful in a sense that he's not afraid to be personal, you can really see the characters his literature," Lodge said. Weigl teaches at Penn State and is on the faculty at Warren Wilson College. His published collection of poetry include "Song of Napalm" and "What Save Us." The event ended with a question and answer period in which Weigl answered general questions about the art of writing literature.