Destiny O. Birdsong read her work Monday night in the Lindsay Young Auditorium. The reading was part of the University of Tennessee’s Creative Writing Program Reading Series.
Birdsong is a poet, essayist and novelist originally in Louisiana. She is serving as an Artist-in-Residence this year at UT for 2022-2023. Before coming to Knoxville, Birdsong lived and studied in Nashville.
She attended Fisk University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and history, and went on to earn her Master of Fine Arts and doctorate from Vanderbilt.
Birdsong had two books featured at this event. The first work was a poetry collection called “Negotiations,” and the second was her novel, “Nobody’s Magic.”
“Nobody’s Magic” is Birdsong’s debut novel. It was published in February of this year by Grand Central Publishing. The story is told in three parts, each centering on a different woman living in Birdsong’s hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana.
The book has been praised by large media outlets, such as the New York Times, Associated Press and The Washington Post.
For the event, Birdsong read several excerpts from her book but spent most of the time on her poetry.
“Poetry is my first home in literature,” Birdsong said.
She read to the audience compositions detailing sexual assault, fraught medical history, police aggression and Popeyes Chicken.
Birdsong said when choosing which medium to tell a story in, the work often begins in the form it ends up as. Her work frequently starts out as one line that evolves.
“The work is way smarter than I am … It nudges me in really specific ways,” Birdsong said.
Birdsong said she comes from a family of storytellers, but a family with “deep silences.” Violence in her family led her to write as a way to process what she felt she couldn’t ask about.
“Part of my writing started as just a way to, like, say things I knew I couldn’t say out loud,” Birdsong said.
Her family and its history are at the center of many of her poems, such as her poem “A Tendency Toward Violence” which details how her great-grandmother murdered her great-grandfather.
Although she has a published novel, Birdsong said she didn’t begin writing prose until later in her career, after earning her graduate degree. She was inspired by the television show “Power” and a creator on the show who would break down how she created scenes.
Her work has appeared in many publications, including African American Review, Paris Review Daily and Catapult. She won the Academy of American Poets Prize and Negotiations was longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection.
After the event, Birdsong’s books were available to purchase. Along with that, bookmarks were given out which detailed the semester’s dates for all the readings in the Creative Writing Series and there was a small reception afterward with wine and cheese.
Birdsong’s presentation was the semester’s first reading in the Creative Writing Program Reading Series, and there will be two more this semester.
UT student Ky Bogdan was recommended this reading by her Advanced Fiction Writing professor Michael Knight.
“I’m a huge fan of poetry,” Bogdan said. “Because of COVID the past couple of years I haven’t been able to go to any readings … I was really excited to go to this one.”
The next two readings in UT’s Creative Writing Series will be held on Oct. 17 and Nov. 14 in the Lindsay Young Auditorium. The presenting writers will be Lydia Conklin and Sidik Fofana.
