Advanced Poetry

All Creative Writing majors must take at least one advanced course during their time at Susquehanna. I chose to take Advanced Poetry, which would surely surprise my freshman year self who was so set on taking Susquehanna's novel writing course. Advanced Poetry has about eight students, and it’s a night class that happens once a week. During class, we usually discuss at least one book of poems, do some sort of poetry exercise to generate more material, and workshop (which is discussing someone's work and critiquing it) some of our classmates’ poems. By the end of the semester, we will all have completed drafts of book-length poetry collections. This means writing a lot of poems—about fifty pages or so of material!

In our class, we are aiming to create coherent collections revolving around some central ideas, images, themes, or sources, rather than collections that are merely our best work slapped together. The thread holding my collection together keeps changing as I continue to work on it. At the beginning of the semester, I had decided I wanted to use pop culture, specifically pop culture aimed at a female teenage audience, as a source. I turned in 4 poems for workshop that were pop culture-inspired. After my workshop, I didn’t feel as if my subject was working. The poems weren’t conveying what I wanted them to say--mostly because I wasn't sure what I wanted them to say. I knew, though, what people were reading into it wasn't what I had intended. I decided to go back to the drawing board and was attracted to the idea of sacraments. Writing about pop culture had been my attempt to remove myself from my usual subjects—religion, theology, etc.—but I was drawn back anyway!

During my next workshop (for this one, I had to turn in fifteen pages of poems), my professor and some of the other students suggested that I could bring these subjects together. Their comments have allowed me to see a broader concept behind my collection. I intend to explore topics like performance, the truth or transformation that accompanies performance, ritual and worship in religious and pop culture settings.  I also felt encouraged by that workshop to dive into my subject matter on a more personal level. The poems I submitted to my class bounced around between different fictional speakers, but many were reading them as if they were one speaker and wanted to know more about that speaker. In my next set of poems due for class, I'm experimenting with drawing more directly from my own experiences. 

This Friday, I’ll be turning in that next set of poems--another fifteen pages. It’ll be interesting to hear what the class has to say! I’m not quite sure how I feel about many of these poems, so I think whatever their reactions are, it’ll be a lot of help.

Right now the prospect of finishing a book-length poetry collection is fairly daunting, but I’m sure I’ll be happy I was pushed to do so when I have so much to work with once the class is completed. I hope this will provide me with the motivation--and the material--to more seriously pursue poetry publication.

The Evolution of a Creative Writing Major

Coming into college, I was very focused on a certain type of writing—fiction, particularly novels. In high school, I completed many Young Adult novels and had completed one novel for middle-school-aged children. Though I knew I’d have to stretch myself in terms of writing other kind of works during my four years at Susquehanna, I figured this would continue to be my creative focus.

Throughout most of my freshman year, I was pretty certain about my aims as a writer. I really enjoyed my Introduction to Fiction class, where we wrote short stories, but I knew it was no coincidence that most of my short stories were on the longer end of the spectrum. Even my professor seemed to recommend elaborating on my stories when they were already over ten pages long. The stories in my head just don’t seem to come out in short story form. I think this is one thing that has remained consistent for me as a writer.  I love fiction, but short story is not my forte. Next year, I need to take a class for my Advanced Writing requirement. I could take Advanced Short Story, but I much prefer the idea of taking the Novel Writing course instead.

However, I certainly haven’t worked on novels at college as much as I had anticipated as an incoming student. I have never been the best at time management, and I think college makes time management all the harder since there’s so much to do. In high school, I could have friends and activities to keep me busy, but ultimately, I went home at the end of the day. When college is your home (at least when school is in session), those things surround you.  Maybe this sounds like I'm making excuses. I might be to an extent. Though I love writing and do think I should be more disciplined, it’s hard to imagine regretting any of the times that I spent immersed in activities important to me or just chatting with friends. I have a whole life of writing ahead of me, but only four years of college.

When I do have time to write now, I usually end up writing poetry. This is not what I expected at all my freshman year. It’s funny that I'm so surprised by it, since looking back at high school, I definitely did write poetry. I never took it seriously, though. Poetry was this complicated thing that I just did poorly as an emotional release—not something I could master. Last school year, though, I began to write poetry more and more frequently and with a bit more seriousness. It especially helped that I began finding poetry that I liked to read. I was still not sure, however, if it was something I should think of as any more than a hobby. My Intro to Poetry class during the spring semester led me to produce some poetry that actually made me feel proud and gave me some validation that, even if I was far from where I wanted to be as a poet, I still had some talent—I had someplace I could start.

Poetry continues to be my genre of choice at the moment.  I am currently in an Intermediate Poetry workshop, where we are working on formulating chapbooks. Chapbooks are small collections of writing, typically under 40 pages. The topic that will tie together my chapbook is women in the Bible. So far I have worked on poetry that explores the perspectives of Mary, Martha, Yael, and Delilah and have also done some poetry that looks at reading the Bible as a woman.  I am very excited about this project and often very inspired by my Women in Biblical Tradition class.

I am interested in pursuing poetry and seeing where it takes me, but I also hope to make more returns, and soon, to fiction, the genre that  really kindled my passion for writing.

Writing and Vulnerability

This semester I am taking Introduction to Creative Nonfiction with Dr. Glen Retief.  Although I maintain this blog, have kept journals, and have written for my high school newspaper and Susquehanna Currents, creative nonfiction is a much different beast than those things.  Currently, our class is in the memoir unit.  Our assigned exercise was to recreate a memory in 1 to 3 pages.  As I worked on this yesterday, I certainly—and deeply—felt that different. 

The moments I feel most drawn to write about are inevitably the most embarrassing for me.  Putting them on the page, with the intention of later sharing them, requires a vulnerability with which I’m not very familiar.  Sure, vulnerability is something I can channel into my preferred genre of choice, fiction, but it’s disguised.   At the end of the day, the story is about my characters.  The emotions belong to them, even if they were taken from mine.  Saying This is my life.  This is me.  These are my feelings is a vulnerability of another variety.  One that’s raw and fresh.    

There is basically no way the subject of my scene will ever find out about it.  After all, it’s just an exercise!  The topic for my memoir is not even firmly decided yet.  And still, I ask myself these questions: What if someone from my high school got their hands on this?  They’d know who I was writing about, wouldn’t they?  It would be so clear, even if I changed names.  And while I don’t believe I paint this person in a negative light, it would certainly change their perception of me.   That paranoid has potential to be paralyzing.   

Also, I’m normally not afraid of sharing my work.  Rip apart my words!  Please!  But sharing myself—again, a totally different beast.   I know that when it comes to workshops, the class will be there to aid and critique my writing, not critique my life, but that doesn’t mean there’s a fear that while they talk about structure and characterizations, they’re internally ripping to shreds my life, personality, and choices. 

All of this, I suppose, is why there is a Confidentiality Policy instated for the course.   I now appreciate its importance. 

In the end, fear and awkwardness were set aside, and I wrote the required scene.  I also began feeling attracted to other instances of my life that could relate so well to this moment.  In my brain, this exercise to prepare for memoir was turning into a memoir.  And though I’ve been approaching Nonfiction with a certain dose of hesitance, I’ll admit, I even had some fun toying with these prospects. 

The direction I think I can take this in will only mean more vulnerability.  More recent wounds and revelations.  More potential humiliation if somehow my words were unleashed, getting back to the sources of their inspiration. 

When I get to the end of this course, I hope that I can say I didn’t hold back.  I hope that fighting off those feelings and submerging myself in vulnerability will be worth the results.