SmArts

December 19-25, 2016

Visit from a bandit’s daughter

By Molly Rector

Tuesday night the reading series I co-curate, Open Mouth, hosted poet and memoirist Molly Brodak, who read a few powerful poems offering perspective on the current conflict in Syria. Before appearing at Open Mouth, Brodak read at local bookstore Nightbird Books from her memoir, Bandit, which is about growing up with a pathological-lying, gambling-addicted, bank-robbing dad (dubbed the “Mario Bros. Bandit” by the FBI).

Brodak was invited to Fayetteville by the Northwest Arkansas Prison Story Project, after the organization had taught Bandit to eleven women currently incarcerated at the Northwest Arkansas Correction Center, in Fayetteville. Fellow poet Matthew Henriksen, who teaches for the Prison Story Project (and was instrumental in organizing the visit), also arranged for Brodak to read, answer questions, and sign books at the correctional facility on Wednesday morning.

Henriksen reported via social media that the visit within the correction center was a great success. “Molly Brodak just gave one of the best poetry readings I’ve ever been to but instead of poetry she read a memoir and answered questions in the basement of a women’s prison,” Henriksen wrote.

Released by Grove Press only a few months ago (in October), Bandit has already received a great deal of press and several very positive reviews. In keeping with the general assessment of her work, Brodak’s whirlwind tour of several Northwest Arkansas literary spaces has left us all delightfully reeling.

Molly Rector is a staff writer for the Daily Record. Contact her at molly@dailydata.com.