Another Class Assignment

Link Number 1: The Referential Post

Link Number 2: The Article it's Referring to


I think this referential post works well for two reasons. The blog I found this article on, treehugger.com, is all about raising awareness about environmental issues and publishing recent research and discoveries relevant to the "green movement." People go to this website as a concentrated source on environmental campaigns, etc. The dying coral reefs have been so highly debated and steeped in controversy, you could find a million articles on the issue but not very many with much substance. Treehugger manages to blog about a seriously important aspect of the coral reef problem that was originally published by BBC; a respected and credible source. So, firstly, they provide for a specific audience, and secondly, they take what they write about from legitimate resources.

Spooky

So it's Halloween time, yet again, and the UMass literary scene knows how to put on a show.

2009 marks the 200th birthday of the one and only Edgar Allan Poe, and to commemorate his work and his influence on creative writing and the visual arts in New England, UMass is holding a Halloween weekend event in his honor. Aside from Thursday nights open conference featuring readings by Martin Espada, a UMass English professor, as well as John Crowley and Elizabeth Hand, two published poets, there will be weekend long campus-wide events.

I'll definitely be attending Thursday night's conference, which should be a lot of fun. Maybe I'll learn something new about the historical brooding poet. In any case, it should be a fun post to write up for MassLive...maybe top four spookiest poems by Poe?

Happy Halloween everyone!

A Case of the Mondays

As Scott pointed out to me via e-mail a few days ago, my latest post on the MassLive blog comes up third or fourth on Google if you're searching for the poet James Haug. That's pretty neat, I think.

I'm really disappointed in myself because....I FORGOT to go to Northampton Saturday night for the poetry slam show. I was honestly really looking forward to it but Friday night wiped me out and I ended up falling asleep at like 8:30. Definitely not how I wanted to spend the rest of the weekend. Sorry to those looking forward to a review on that. However, there's still a lot to look forward to concerning the literary scene here in Amherst.

Wednesday night there will be a poetry reading held for undergrads in the Student Union Art Gallery at 7:00 PM. Anyone is welcome to read their work. If I get the courage, I might even step up to the podium (but don't count on it). I hope to see some of my fellow English majors up there! A review on MassLive to follow.

Happy Monday!

And Now, A Quick Class Assignment

Three different posts from the same blog:

1) Exclusive: I Helped Richard Heene Plan a Balloon Hoax

2)Seven Halloween Costumes to Avoid

3)Twitter CEO's Mockery: We 'Were Laughing at Those Media Guys'

What's different about them? What's the same? Well...to start off, each of these blog posts are dealing with current events. Granted, they are popular current events, big in the media for their entertainment value and not exactly their vital importance to the world-at-large. Political humor (i.e. Sarah Palin Halloween costumes), Blogger tech and what's big in that world (the Twitter craze), and the latest crazy news headline (Balloon Boy)...everyone knows about these things. Everyone reads about them and has their own opinion about them.

What's different about each blog post is their individual amount of gravity. Each of them incorporate some sort of humor, just because of the topics. But the post about Twitter is the most matter-of-fact, while the post on Halloween costumes definitely meets the criteria for silliest. The Balloon Boy post sits somewhere in the middle, mostly because the topic is so ridiculous, outrageous even, that it's kind of hard to believe...you might even want to think that it's a joke. But it's not. It's 100% true and it's splashed all over the internet media outlets.

This blog reaches out to a large audience, but it's definitely the younger generations that are going to read all of this and understand it. Techies, gossips, and CNN-a-holics alike will find what they want to read on this blog, and won't be disappointed.

Entertainment + Relevance + Information = A Readable Blog

Best Damn Poetry Show in Western Mass

Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Scott took the time to send me an e-mail about this slam poetry show, and I'm really glad he did because it sounds amazing. Maybe I can even get some ES people to tag along, because really, who doesn't love a trip to Northampton on a Saturday night?

Check out the info here, and in the meantime I'll have some cool stuff posted about Emily Dickinson...the historic poet who lived right here in Amherst.

Write on, my friends, write on.

Poetry Festival in your Backyard

I'm super happy I've gotten so involved with Jabberwocky and English Society this semester, because it gives me a group of people to attend all of these amazing readings happening around the Pioneer Valley with who love literature as much as I do. Tomorrow night, instead of the usual meeting in the Bartlett Cube, we're all going to the Poetry Festival at Amherst Cinema.

James Tate will be reading, and is an Amherst local favorite, UM Amherst MFA chair, and a nationally recognized poet with awards ranging from the Pulitzer Prize to the William Carlos
Williams Award. It really amazes me that I have the opportunity to hear him read his work in person. Ellen Dore Watson and James Haug will also be reading. All three are the kick-off to what I'm sure is going to be an amazing week here in Amherst, saturated in words.

Tickets are $5 if you're interested in coming. I'll be interviewing people in the audience on their reactions and their history with the poets, and I can't wait to write the full review for the masslive blog.

Cheers!

Hurray for English Society

Lots of fun stuff going on in the creative writing scene. Last Thursday I went to my second English Society meeting, we talked about Jabberwocky, fundraising, and read our first submission. I postered all around campus on Friday, and finally got my interview with Soo Bee, the editor of the journal who is also just a really cool girl. I hope the article I wrote can be submitted to the Collegian as well as MassLive, for this class, because I think the publicity would do the ES some good.

In other news, the Poetry Festival is coming up on the 15th. I'm really excited for that, I've never been to anything like it. Also, the Visiting Writer's series is going strong, unfortunately Sherman Alexie's lecture was postponed. I was going to blog about it but sadly, there hasn't been a rescheduled date posted yet. More on that later.

I'm thinking of heading to Smith College sometime this week to look at the Sylvia Plath pieces that are a part of the "Unconquered by Flames: The Literary Lights of Yaddo" exhibit there. Her poetry is very haunting. This is my favorite, a villanelle, that I had to analyze my senior year of high school in AP English. Take a look. Hopefully I'll have more to post on that after my trip to check it out.