Week of 1/22/14

During our in-class close reading of Second Avenue, I learned very quickly that it is difficult to do a close reading of Second Avenue. Without the help of a group reading, I’m not sure I would have been able to make any progress in the close reading without much pain, confusion, and giving up. Luckily, with combined knowledge and attention to detail, I actually learned a lot from our group reading. We focused primarily on the beginning of the third section. We came up with the idea that the introductory lines of section three was primarily referencing the commonplace, everyday working force that was sweeping the nation at the time. People were beginning to lose their soul to the monotony of work and to the integration of all cultures that became the appropriation of their culture into the collective “American” culture. We also found the argument that the focus on working at all times took the natural beauty from our eyes, leaving us too busy paying attention to the small details to appreciate the big picture of the beautiful collection of culture that America was supposed to be.

Week of 1/15/14

The piece we read in class, although I can’t for the life of my remember the title, was really interesting to me. I wasn’t so much drawn in by the specific content, but much more by the thematic elements and consistency. Reading through it, I kept noticing that themes and ideas mentioned in the introduction were constantly used in the poetry, relating the piece back to itself and keeping it grounded in what it wanted to say. The overall theme of change and cultural appropriation only became more evident as the piece continued. The final semi-mirrored pages were incredibly potent in making this point — the display of small differences only helped to emphasize the large impact that the changes had on the environment and culture.

Introduction for CRTW 300

I started writing creatively with poetry during middle school and continued developing my writing throughout high school. I eventually had a class with a professor, Jas Obrecht, who helped shape my understanding and love of the form. After that class, I decided that Creative Writing was what I wanted to follow and pursue. Since then, I have branched out to multiple genres past the already broad genre of poetry. I began writing short fiction, and more recently have delved into writing plays. The program so far has been a new experience for sure, although not quite what I expected going into it. I have learned a lot in different ways than I anticipated, and I’m excited to continue doing so and to see myself through to the end of the program.

Genre, to me, isn’t much more than a simple categorization system. It is a way to easily partition pieces of writing into separate groups in order to understand their content or structure quickly in a recognizable way. When genre becomes more specific, it is merely another branch on the literature tree that the idea of genre initially sprouts from. Literature itself is always the trunk, each piece of writing just finds its way from there to its preferred leaf.

After exploring genre as an idea and as a constraint, I prefer to not limit myself to a particular genre or set of genres. When I write, I like to try new things in form and content to see what fits me or my piece best. Experimentation in my writing has become more important the further I get into the program. Having all options available for my writing leaves me free to truly write what I want to write. Without the constraints of preferred genre or genres, I am free to create as creatively as I wish.