By Lloyd Allotey
In the auditorium, with the cameras in back, and the College clubs behind their tables as keen-eyed as bats; curiosity had steeled the bustling crowd’s mind towards Michael Ruby. I attempted to understand him before he even mentioned his name, his thoughts; while others, of course, searched for salvation in their phones. Then Michael Ruby spoke. Not with power, but with an insightful self-confidence that said, “this is who I am”, an astonishing normalcy which articulated how his writing reflected himself. The ins and outs of human experience, or at least, how he views life and interprets it through various things like dreams; capturing the strangeness and broadcasting to the reader as is on the page. And it was great to hear.
Throughout the beginning of his talk on his writing: one thing was clear: Michael Ruby had pulled a lot from his dreams in his early writing; vivid ones, the type that one felt they were touching silk in one moment, then everything vanished, puffed and flown away like a ball of air in the next. And he would go on about this, in great detail, and having a sense of urgency to write down the voices he heard right before going to bed. Yet he wouldn’t really explain these strange experiences he encountered with the human psyche, rather he would showcase it, putting the abstractness of dreams and the human mind in a case; painting how one interacts with the world into existence and letting it hang like a portrait in a museum. The end result leaving his poetry in particular to dance between the colors of surreal, and dream-like, blurring the lines, blending together a hint of madness and curiosity, stream of consciousness and psychological. One great example was his poem about hearing words in bird calls, where he would repeat, almost chanting, slowly, some of the same words again, but one could still get an interesting conversation from it. And to add on, his writing as well reflects his day—he especially solidified this by when read his poem, “Dread”, which was about his brother in a near-death experience. In this poem, Michael Ruby wrote down passive-aggressive thoughts, breaking up the momentum of his mind while trying to keep calm since learning about his brother’s experience. It is with moments like these where the audience can engage with the humanity he exemplifies in his writing; perhaps at times, not understanding the alleyways or cracks of life, the illogical, but seeing it as is.
He continued about other things too, such as: Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung having an influence on him, music also. The latter half of the event he would answer the questions that had been broiling inside all of us; and Michael Ruby went on to answer these questions, shockingly broad, pretty much giving a specific answer that answered several questions. One question which was asked was: “How does his writing coexist, since they are all vastly different from each other?”, and he responded by saying how he would invade all spaces in his life, just to write, whether it was on the job, working as an editor for New York Times, or simply writing about someone in the subway.
Overall, everyone had a great time, leaving us satisfied with Michael Ruby and perhaps even more knowledgeable as well. It was interesting to see how he came up with his writing style, how he practically used it to be a camera for the things one cannot understand about life; handing the reader and photograph they will truly never forget. He was unlike any other poet.