Attempting to navigate the hall of NYU Langone Hospital on a Tuesday evening at 5:45, I was there for last reason I would expect: to attend an “off the page” reading. The reading I attended was one of the biyearly readings of the Bellevue Literary Review (BLR). The BLR is a literary magazine that focuses on viewing human existence through the lens of illness, diseases, health, and healing. It is not a publication I was ever familiar with, but nonetheless as I opened the doors of what appeared to be a lecture hall I was excited to hear writers and poets perform their work.

As it turns out, it wasn’t the authors of the short stories and poems that recited their work, but rather performers hired by the BLR who recited the works. I didn’t notice this until I decided to open the program halfway through the first performance, after understanding this my perspective as an audience member was altered.

The first performance was the only short story recited at the reading. It was a story about about a man going to war who fell in love with a girl. The performer was reading off the paper half of the time and periodically looking at the crowd. To me, it seemed like it was a combination of the way a preschool teacher would read a book to her students and the way a professional actor would act out a scene. He did a very good job portraying the characters emotions. I  particularly enjoyed the accents he did to act out the characters. It made the story be authentic. His tone moved throughout the reading the reading, keeping the audience engaged. When he first began reading I thought I felt his connection the story he wrote, upon realizing that that wasn’t the case because he didn’t write the story I concluded that he is just a great performer.

There were pros and cons to hearing a short story read it out loud. A  pro is that it was kind of like watching a show, I feel like I really heard the characters. A  cons is that , maybe it’s a personal thing, I had a hard time following the story probably because it was read aloud. Personally, I can’t fully follow and internalize a story being read aloud, I always need a copy to read along with. I found myself getting lost and tuning him out for seconds at a time which led to confusion, no matter how much the performer tried to keep the audience engaged.

My favorite part of the reading was the poetry. Although it wasn’t slam poetry, which I love watching, it came close. The performer, this time a girl with a South American accent, recited the poetry almost by heart. I was really touched by the first poem she read “Eating Disorder” not only because of the topic but also because of the emotion she put into her performance.

All in all, attending this reading was a great experience. However, I’m really bothered by the fact that the authors and poets themselves did not perform their own works. It somehow felt a little less personal with performers reciting the works. After attending this reading, the next spoken word event I’ll be attending will definitely include slam poetry.