There’s an anecdote about a great opera teacher who couldn’t sing a note. However, we seek that our professors be both brilliant practitioners in their field as well as competent teachers. Some may even prefer a classroom ambience of heady inspiration to the stability of a well-crafted lesson plan.

The first Russell House Series event of the year, featuring readings by University English faculty Lisa Cohen, Matthew Sharpe, and Elizabeth Willis, indicated that professors are equally active and creative outside and inside the classroom.

Cohen, an Assistant Professor of English, opened the event with a preview of her forthcoming book. It focuses on the unrealized potential of the early 20th century scholar and sophisticate Esther Murphy. Cohen initially evoked the word “failure” to characterize Murphy’s inability or unwillingness to complete and publish her masterwork on the life of Madame de Maintenon, Louis XIV’s mistress.

“It was a life-long performance rather than a record that she produced,” Cohen read.

Soon, the incantatory power of the word “failure” suffused the piece, evoking the anxiety that is implicit in setting words to paper.

Assistant Professor of English Sharpe followed with three selections from his recently published novel, “Jamestown,” a post-apocalyptic work that satirizes colonization. Sharpe enlisted his fellow writers to help dramatize the first two passages, cheerfully absurdist dialogues between grievously wounded settlers.

The gallows humor that characterized Sharpe’s selections (dying Indian guide Albert ends his meditation on life, death and pain with a nonchalant “peace out”) elicited raucous laughter from the packed room. His reading received enthusiastic applause.

For the evening’s final readings, Assosciate Professor of English Willis delved back into introspection, taking poetry from both her earliest collections and her most recent project, “Meteoric Flowers.” These intricately textured and evocative pieces, delivered in Willis’ graceful vibrato, proved elusive for some.

“The poetry was boring,” said Whitten Overby ’10 at the reception following the readings, as he surveyed the refreshment table.

Generally, however, students seemed to appreciate the night’s variety.

“I liked the progression of thoughtful to hilarious to thoughtful—to eating,” said Malwina Andruczyk ’08.

“Wait, are you talking about the sex party?” asked a student walking by.

As for the experience of those behind the lectern, Sharpe described what it is like to read one’s own work to an audience.

“I think of a book as something like a musical score that is usually performed privately, by a single reader at a time,” he explained. “In a literary reading, it’s performed publicly by the author in collaboration with the audience, so I like readings for that reason, and because I’m a ham.”

Willis agreed that the readings were enjoyable.

“I love reading to an audience,” she said. “It’s an ancient and very satisfying format that keeps us nicely grounded in the realm of the social. Literature is meant to be shared, and apart from reading publicly, I love listening to it that way, in real time, in the presence of others.”

As to whether she considers herself primarily a writer or an educator, Willis answered emphatically.

“Absolutely writer first,” she said. “Teaching is a form of composition too, in a sense, but for me it’s secondary to—and an extension of—my work as a writer.”

As the evening came to a close, at least one student hoped for a more personal encounter with the professors at the reception.

“I wanted to talk to them, but they weren’t in the room with the food,” mused Foster Nichols ’10. “I suppose you just have to get invited to one of the dinners. That must be where the real hobnobbing occurs.”