Floyd Skloot

Monday night I went downtown to Jay Etkin Gallery for the reading of Floyd Skloot. This was part of the River City Writers Series. To tell you the truth I was not looking forward to sitting and listening to a guy that I had no clue was read his work. I got to the place a little late and was worried I would be interrupting since it would only be an hour long, or so I thought. To my surprise everyone was standing around eating and people were still coming in. I soon found out that I was wrong and the reading would be three hours long. So I was not too happy after this and was really dreading the reading. I sat down with a few other people who were there from the class and waited for it to begin. It began with Rebekah Skloot introducing the speaker. Right away I began to become interested because she introduced the speaker as her father. I thought that was really cool and made the man more interesting. Skloot finally came up and began by reading some of his poems. He also read a memoir and an essay. All were really captivating. I liked how he wrote about every day things. He could take any event and elaborate on it so much. During his presentation, Skloot explained how he had caught a virus that took over his brain and caused great brain damage. I would have never guessed that he had anything wrong with his brain. He seemed to have no difficultly talking to us. This detail only made Skloot even more intriguing. I really enjoyed hearing how he lived with his disability and worked through it. It was a great experience to hear Skloot speak and I only hope I can read more of his work.