Length: at least 450 words
• Here you are on our class blog. Log in to contribute. If it doesn’t want to let you post to the blog, email me and remind me to add you as a contributor!
• Make your first blog entry. In that entry, please spend at least 450 words answering the following questions:
• What are you studying, and why do you like it?
• Where are you from, and what’s it like there?
• Aside from writing, what are your interests and hobbies?
• Have you had good or bad experiences getting feedback on your work? What were they?
• Who are your influences? Name some poets, living or dead, whose work you admire (and try to articulate what you admire about them). A poet you detest can also be an influence--if you can articulate how you want to write differently from him.
• What’s good about good poetry?
• What do you hope to learn in this class? (Don’t be lame and say, “I want to learn to write better poems.” Be more specific than that.)
• Don't forget that you also need to bring a written response to the workshop checklist to class Tuesday--we'll be running a practice workshop on Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Sonnet IV."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
I hope I'm doing this right...
Hello. My name is Joanna Moyer-Battick, I’m the freshman who was overwhelmed by the stairs. I’m studying Psychology and Fine Arts at the moment, but my major is undecided. I like Psychology because it helps me understand why I think and act the way I do and it adds an element of reason to human behavior, which is often pretty bizarre. I like art because it’s s versatile and no matter what you do, someone somewhere in the world will always think it’s genius.
I am from East Fairfield, Vermont. There are more cows than people, and the Shell gas station at the end of my street is the closest thing we have to a mall. My family lives in an old church (despite the fact that we are atheists) and we have a huge organic garden that I miss very much. My house is open and everyone can hear everyone else and we eat dinner together and watch movies together and play scrabble together and I am always very happy when I’m home.
If I’m not writing then I’m probably playing guitar, reading, or taking photographs. My Dad is a very good writer and my Mum is a very good photographer who also plays guitar. So, it’s easy to see where I acquired most of my hobbies. I also like to draw, sew and drink tea compulsively.
I’ve had good experiences getting feedback, when my teachers put real thought into ideas to make my writing better and I agreed with them. I’ve also had bad experiences when teachers focused entirely on grammar and I didn’t get anything but a mediocre paper without any spelling mistakes at the end. Most feedback I get comes from teachers but I also have had mixed results when it comes to parents, peers, and friends.
I admire my Dad as a poet more than any other poet I can think of. I do, however, admire Nikki Giovanni’s style and Sylvia Plath’s diction. I like poets who can write stories as well as poetry because they always bring a poetic element to their characters and descriptions. If I don’t like a poem, I usually stop reading it.
Good poetry makes me wish I had written it so bad that I get restless and have to go play guitar or read to distract myself. Good poetry flows so well that it gets stuck in my head like a song and I go around repeating lines to myself. Good poetry uses a word in the perfect way. Good poetry accepts that it doesn’t have to rhyme or use clichés.
In this class, I hope to learn how to receive criticism from other students without taking it personally and to keep revising even if I think that changing a poem will ruin it. I’d also like to read poems from a variety of different poets. At the moment, I enjoy writing poetry more than reading it but I think I could appreciate reading poetry more if I found more poets I really like and the only way I can do that is to read more poetry.
I don't think I'd doing this right either but...
My name is Meredith Clynes (Marvelous Meredith). I'm the one who sat on the end by the door and blushed a lot (family curse). I'm majoring in psychology and minoring in gender studies and sociology. I've discovered that I don't like my major as much as my minors. I have become much more interested in the minors, especially gender studies. If anyone out there has not taken a gender class yet, I really recommend it. I do like psychology because it shows me the reason people act the way they do and gives you a broader understanding of not only things like psychological disorders and whatnot, but the psychology behind sports, behavior of animals and people, etc. I love gender studies because those are the classes that have opened my eyes to the close mindedness of so many people. I think I have become a much better and more understanding person after taking gender and soc classes, which I think is an important result of college classes.
I'm from Glens Falls, NY near the Adirondack Mountains. Glens Falls is considered upstate NY, and is also considered a "city". I feel like Glens Falls is hardly a city, but I love it anyway because the people are nice, always say hello, and I'm comfortable there. I live with my parents, my identical twin sister, and my golden retriever Leon, who was a Hurricane Katrina dog that we rescued.
Aside from writing, I like to run, cross country ski, read, and be with family, friends, and animals. Eating and sleeping are also my interests, perhaps my favorite interests.
I've had good experiences getting feedback on the writing I've done at SLU, but seeing as this will only be my third English class here, I feel I don't have as much experience as others. Sometimes people have missed the point or the underlying message of my writing completely, but I can't be upset because I know I've done that before myself. I also think people are sometimes too scared to "offend" another person's work, so they wont tell their true opinion.
I'm more into reading non fiction, and haven't read a lot of poetry. Actually, I've read none since I've been here, but had to write a lot in my Masculinities class last semester. But when I was little Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and the person who wrote poetry for "Something Big Has Been Here" were always my favorites.
I feel poetry is good when you can empathize with the reader. Reading any work where I've had a similar experience makes it easy to understand and feel better that somewhere, someone else has felt the same as you at one point. Although I haven't read much poetry, I can relate it to nonfiction. I like when nonfiction flows well, keeps you interested, and makes you upset when you reach the end.
In this class I'd like to learn how to be comfortable with myself enough to write what I really feel. I'd like to learn how to analyze poetry and how to offer better comments and suggestions to poetry instead of fiction and nonfiction. As Joanna said before, I would also like to keep revising even though I think revising may ruin the poem. I'm very stubborn, so when I think something is right then I don't want to change it, and I need to step away from that.
Leaving your post as a comment is fine--but I invite you to leave it as its actual own new post. If you haven't gotten an email inviting you to join the blog so that you can post to it, email me and let me know.
Hi! I’m Molly Wike, a sophomore. I am studying a lot of different areas, but I am mainly interested in sociology. I am taking poetry (obviously), Swahili, psychology and sociology this semester. I am incapable of studying math and science and have long since given up on those two areas. I like sociology because I like to learn about why people are the way they are. I think it is crazy how different everyone is and I am always learning more about why people behave or think the way that they do.
I am from Chicago, Illinois. I’m a north-sider and therefore a big-time Cubs fan. I live about 25 minutes outside of the city, in the suburbs. There is always traffic and construction and it is always busy. I live three blocks from Lake Michigan, but that is about the only undeveloped area around. There is no nature escape like that in upstate New York.
I love to be outdoors. I love being here because I get the chance to hike, snowboard, snowshoe, go to the rope swing and explore. In the summers, I like to sail on the Lake and I work as a nanny. I went to California this summer to hike Mt. Whitney. In addition, I got to do the three-day walk for breast cancer research in Chicago. I can also be really lazy and on rainy days, I like to get cozy and watch any romantic-comedy. I also like food. And lots of it.
As for schoolwork, I have had an okay experience getting feedback on work. I think it is important to be criticized, but also to be complimented. I like knowing what others think of my writing and my ideas and what they would do to make it even easier and more enjoyable to read. As long as I receive positive and constructive feedback, then I enjoy it.
My influences? My biggest influences are my family, but none of us are poets, so I guess that doesn’t work. Both of my parents are philosophers (sounds fancy, but isn’t really) and I tried really hard to ignore most of their “deep” talks while I was growing up. As for poets, I don’t know too many. But one poem I think is really powerful is called “Echoes” written by Louise Glick. It is a little morbid, but I have a book of her poems that I like. She makes me think.
Good poetry….It lets me experience the same emotions as the person writing the poem. If it is written well, I am right there with the author, understanding everything they go through. Also, good poetry is not straightforward. As frustrating as it is to read a five-line poem sixty times before you think you understand it, it is worth it. Also, there shouldn’t be only one way to interpret the poem. It should speak to every reader differently.
I hope to find another outlet. Writing is such a good way to get problems off your chest and I hope the poetry clicks. I want to understand that everyone in the class will not think in the way that I do and hopefully I can accept their critiques. I hope that people in the class appreciate everyone else’s work because it is really intimidating to share writing, especially poetry.
Hello. My name is Erin Panek and I’m a sophomore majoring in English and Environmental Studies. I’ve been passionate about reading and writing my entire life, and reading a good book is one of my favorite things to do. I love the way a beautiful piece of prose can cause such a powerful emotional response, and I think this response is so powerful because literature makes us feel human. I’ve also always loved being outdoors and my love of nature has led me to an interest in how the environment is changing and in the advancements and tactics being used to improve the sustainability of our world for future generations.
When I’m not at SLU my twin sister and I split our time between Natick, MA (a suburb of Boston) and Aspen, CO. In Natick where my mom lives, the community is pretty developed due to its close proximity to the city. The pace of life is very fast and people are constantly rushing around to get things done. Although I wish life weren’t so fast paced I love living near Boston because of all the history, culture, Red Sox games, restaurants, ect. In Aspen, the pace of life is a lot slower, and people take more time to enjoy the small things in life. Our days are usually planned around biking, hiking, or skiing.
Aside from writing, my interests include anything active. I also really like chocolate, good books, chick flicks, and of course being with my friends and family.
In terms of feedback, I have received mostly positive feedback in the past. However, I would like to receive more constructive criticism so that I can improve my work and take it to the next level. At times I do find it hard to be criticized and I’m hoping that this class will help me feel more comfortable about receiving criticism and also in giving it.
I haven’t read a lot of poetry before, but I did enjoy reading Bradstreet and Dickinson in my English classes last year. I liked the sound and rhythm, as well as the historical context and meaning found in their poems. In this class, I am excited to read the work of more recent poets, to find poetry that relates in some way to my life, and to pursue poetry of my own.
Good poetry makes you feel something. The poet pours their sadness or elation into the poem, allowing the reader to experience the emotions used in creating it. Good poetry is difficult to forget and readers are affected by the poem long after they’ve read it.
In this class, I hope that I can become more comfortable with myself as a writer and not fear criticism as much as I have in the past. I want to learn how to let the creative juices flow without trying to mold them in a particular way and I want to drop my perfectionist antics and allow myself to be creative without the fear of failure hovering over me. In essence, I want to try something new that is out of my comfort zone, and hopefully come out of the experience knowing myself a little bit better.
I'm very uncomfortable using this. I have no idea what is going on around me. The world has become quite digitized since I last remember...
I'll be JT in the forum, so the internet predators at large will not know my deepest fears and desires--or my real name...
I study trees and other plants because it is the thing that keeps my interest most, next to music. I would study music, but it would take a lot more work on my part, and I'm not sure that it would be as much fun anymore.
I come from many places. I'm a product of Canton, NY, most every part of Vermont at some point or another, mostly Oakville, CT, and everywhere that I've been in between my birth and this night. In CT, there are not enough trees around me. But the sun still feels good, and that's all you can ask for. It's been a strange life but probably no stranger than most lives. Sometimes it's dark and scary in here, but most of the time it's just a fun place to hang out.
I play guitar and drums; I'm better at drums. I often draw with a pencil, and sometimes the scenes I create don't look too horrible. I enjoy hiking and being outside in general--the sun is the best feeling in the world.
Most of my time that I spent growing up, I saw a decent amount of positive feedback on my work. One day I realized that, academically and athletically, I would never be the best. But that's okay. Now I enjoy hearing how I might improve myself. Life is nothing but a learning experience.
I have read a fair amount of Ginsberg, and he probably makes me laugh the hardest, or at least smile the most, and I guess that's what I'm looking for in poetry. I enjoy Ginsberg's freedom and his intelligence. He knows about the conventions set before his time, and he's bent on bending and breaking them in both subtle and dramatic ways.
Good poetry knows the style in which it's written. It doesn't try to be everything at once or make a huge statement if that's not what it's trying to do. "Either love the conventions or detest them, but take a stand." That's what a good poem would say to a bad poem.
I hope to learn how to be better at having fun while writing. Writing is really a very stressful process in most venues, and I feel like it might be easier to be creative in a class like this one.
P.S. So far this blog kind of sounds like a dating service/personal ad blog. I like the flow.
Greetings, my name is Chris McDonald and I am an English major. When I came to St. Lawrence, I was leaning towards Psychology. I took a bunch of English and Psych classes in the first two years, and chose English at the end of sophomore year. Currently, I am taking and introductory Italian class and Sport Psychology along with this poetry class and another critical methods of analysis class.
Writing is what I like to do more so than reading when it comes to English classes. As a result, this poetry class seems like a good chance to get away from the essays and novels of some other literature courses I have taken. Additionally, I am planning to go abroad next fall, likely to London. If I get caught up in my Italian language class, though, Italy might become number one on my list of top abroad destinations.
Home is Manchester, Massachusetts, a small coastal town half an hour north of Boston. The town springs to life during the summer, with many beach-goers and tourists coming from all over the state to enjoy our beaches and restaurants. Back home I life to go boating and hang out with friends – the handful that have not relocated to the city of their schools.
Here at school, home is Dean Eaton. I have a single this year after spending the first two years with a roommate. Room draw has not been too kind to me, so my room is cozy to say the least. I play for the Tennis team here, and I bought a golf membership this fall for the first time at SLU. I often go on ski trips in the winter, even though I am convinced Whiteface Mountain is the coldest place on earth.
My readers have been kind to my writing for the most part. I still waver between present and past tense in almost every sentence, but for the most part, my ‘style’ does not bother people. I have written very little poetry, but enjoy reading poems. I also am fascinated with song lyrics and rhyming, and while my attempts are dismal, it is fun to try to come up with original lines.
Even though love is not a subject I seek out in poetry, I enjoy John Donne’s sonnets. I think his metaphors are remarkable. Satire is another technique that I admire, and he certainly knows how to use comical ideas to make somber statements. I think its kind of a joke for me to assess poets at this point because my knowledge is so limited, but I know that some subjects attract me more than others.
I like poems that deal with nature and have elaborate landscapes. I enjoy having to read something over and over so that each detail is analyzed and the subtext tells a whole other story. Poems that share some sort of tip or lesson are also fun because they teach you something rather than just spin the wheels in your mind. Instead of just reading for readings sake, I like to add something to my repertoire of data.
Aside from writing better poems, I want to learn how to know if a poem is a good one or not. Right now, a poems and paintings are similar to me – I can tell if it took a lot of thought and effort to create, but I could never tell a 100$ painting from a 1,000$ one. I hope to learn what it takes to both write and read good poetry. I know ‘good’ is way too ambiguous, but that is where I am at now, so hopefully I will be able to be more specific about that in a few months.
Hey this is compelling Carl here. I am conservation biology major because I feel like we should understand the world we live in. The things we talk about in class just seem interesting and definitely prevalent in a world that seems to be running out of space. I also like to be able to just go outside and see examples of what I’ve learned in class. In fact the outdoors factor is also a significant attraction to the major for me. Why not be in classes where you are outside for three-hour labs enjoying the fresh air.
I was raised in a town called Westernville, moved to one called Floyd, and finally am a resident of Whitesboro, NY. All three places are a within a 25 minute drive of the notable city of Utica, NY, home of the Saranac brewery and Boilermaker road race. The area is generally boring and pretty uneventful for the younger generations. I however have kept myself pleasantly occupied with activities like soccer and hiking.
I have showed many friends my endeavors in writing and have received entirely positive feedback. I think it is hard for a person to criticize a friend especially in such a personal writing style like poetry. The majority of my influences come from the poetry I have been forced upon through English classes over the years. I have found many of them to be enjoyable however. There are three poems that come to mind right now that I am just taken away by. The first is by the famous Irish poet W. B. Yeats entitled “The Song of Wandering Aengus”. I find it to be incredibly depressing yet cheery and magical. I think it is a poem that can address the power of love, while still being unique and creative. The next poem is called “Field of Vision” and is also by an Irish poet by the name of Seamus Heaney. I worked in a nursing home during high school so I can sympathize with the isolation and loneliness felt by a person who is trapped in a house with nothing but a window to look out. My final poem is “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost. I think we all know this poem and can agree with the power of its bittersweet message.
To me a good poem is one that takes something amazing about the world and articulates the emotion held within that subject matter. A good poem can be about the universal truths of humanity or take a closer look at something simple so that we can better appreciate it. In this class I hope to better my ability to purify my writing and have it less bogged down by unnecessary grammar. I also hope to better my capacity to write in styles outside the normal conventions.
So, I CANNOT figure out how to post an original comment, and here I thought I was good at computers. My name is Jackie Costas and I am a senior. I am studying English and really enjoy creative nonfiction. I like it because I like to write what I know, and writing about my experiences helps me to understand my own emotional reactions towards them. I am from Greenwich, Connecticut. I have lived there since I was eleven. It can be boring, but I don't know exactly how to explain why I like it there but it is a beautiful town, but it lacks diversity. I am on the crew team here at St. Lawrence and I really enjoy almost any sport. I have gotten good feedback on most of my work in english classes, but I am not confident about my abilities as a poet. I am not particularly knowledgeable about poetry and I haven't read enough poetry to have a favorite, but I have always enjoyed Robert Frost. Good poetry, in my opinion, is anything that moves the reader and good poetry can be different for every person, because people relate to different things. In this class I want to become more cultured and become more knowledgeable about poems already written as well as learning to express myself through prose.
This blog stuff isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Good thing im so intelligent. Speaking of that, I'm now a senior and study lots of things. SLU has made me label myself a religious studies major though. I enjoy studying religion because of the passion that people all around the world have for it. I also never participated in any religion and that has inspired my curiousity on the topic.
I am a world traveler so I don't know how to answer that question but currently my mail goes to Clarksville, Maryland. Maryland is a pretty interesting place because of its surrounding features and cities near by. I don't really like the people there but its ok because I spend most of my year in New York. I will not be returning to Maryland after I graduate because its time for me to open a new chapter somewhere else, havent decided where yet but I'll let you know when I do.
My interests and hobbies include soccer, bocce ball, walking, going on adventures, slip n slides, gummie worms, and occasionally consuming alcohol. I use to play soccer for SLU but back problems have kept me from playing last year. I also enjoy comfortible beds.
I haven't really gone looking for any feedback on my writing. Its not that I want to keep my deepest darkest secrets or thoughts from the world, I just have never did. I know our class will be evaluating my work and thats ok with me. so good and bad feedback have never been a real issue for me.
Honestly I have never really surrounded myself with poetry enough to be heavily influenced by it. As a child I enjoyed the work of Dr. Suess and Shel Silverstein.
Whats good about good poetry? I don't really have an answer for that. I personally feel that there has to be someone that enjoys every poem or else it would have never been written. I enjoy fun poems personally that are funny have a playful attitude to them.
I would like to further develop my ability to comprehend and interepet poems. Writing better poems would be good to but I also want to learn how to convey my thoughts in a different manner than I am accustom to... writing a research paper namely.
Welp, see ya later
Here at St. Lawrence I’m studying English and education. I am an English major with a concentration in writing and I’m an education minor. I like English because I enjoy reading and finding stories and works of literature that draw me in and interest me. I don’t have a favorite author; instead, I go through phases and get very excited when I find a book or an author that I appreciate. I like writing because it’s out of my comfort zone. I have always been extremely self conscious of my writing and haven’t often let people read it outside of the teachers for whom I write. Last semester I took Techniques of Fiction and was scared to have my fiction read and therefore focused on it, and I ended up liking the process. I like education because I like actually being able to see children learn. I can’t describe how fulfilling it is to witness a child grasp a concept that I’ve been working on with him or her. I would like, eventually, to be an elementary school teacher.
I’m from Newton, Massachusetts, which is a suburb right outside of Boston. Newton is a very sheltered town, and I feel a little bit as though I’ve grown up in a bubble. It’s PC to a painful degree, so leaving the bubble and coming to SLU was somewhat of a shock to me. I do like Newton though, especially because it’s so near to Boston.
My interests and hobbies include soccer, hiking, swimming, being outdoors, as well as low key activities like board games and cards. Unfortunately, I don’t go out and do any of these things as much as I would like to.
As I said, I don’t much like to have people read my writing so I haven’t had many experiences with feedback. Of those that I have, two stick out as being especially helpful and memorable. One was when a story of mine was workshopped in my fiction class last semester. I was nervous but the first person to speak said something very positive, and from there, it was a lot easier to see that no one was looking to make fun of me or maliciously criticize me. The other was a response to an essay I wrote, and my peer editor told me to articulate what I was trying to say with confidence instead of hiding behind safe words.
I’m not sure who has influenced me, but a poet that I admire is Tennyson, specifically for his In Memoriam. I love that everything written in each poem is completely heartfelt and passionate and engaging. It makes me really feel the way he might have been feeling when he wrote the poems. I think that’s what is good about good poetry, the poem and poet’s ability to engage the reader. In this class, I hope to learn how to write poems with confidence.
Post a Comment