Project #2 Outline

For my second project for Writing for the Web, I plan to do a follow-up piece on the article I wrote on English Society and the UMass undergraduate literary journal "Jabberwocky." The article is going to focus on the selection and publication process of the journal. Although it is early in the year for an annual publication, I'm going to ask Soo Bee Murray and some of the other returning members to outline the events that are being planned to fundraise and what it will take to actually put the journal together. At this Thursday's meeting, I am going to bring my camera which also records video to take photos. I am going to use the video to interview some of the members and ask what the selection process is like for them as individuals and how they think English Society works as a whole.

It should be fun, I'm going to talk to Soo Bee about it after class on Wednesday. Maybe it will motivate ES to really get moving!

Writer's Block

I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with another idea for my MassLive blog. There's a Visiting Writers reading next Thursday in Memorial Hall, which I will write about, but as of right now...I just don't know. Can I do another list? Is that okay? What would it even be on? I feel like I've hit a wall. Maybe I should have thought about it earlier, but I was so absorbed in my article on Charles Simic that I wasn't really thinking about the fact that I should have at the very least two MassLive posts by the time class starts tonight. Ahhh!

This is really just me brainstorming. What could be good enough to post on there that won't take a few days to research and complete? Since I have about an hour and a half at this point...

I was thinking of doing something humorous...maybe writing about how to not write a poem. But who am I to pass judgement that way? I don't think any of the poetry I write is good. I can't just go publish my amateur opinions on a blog that a lot of people in this community read. I'm quite stuck. Maybe I could do a post about my two favorite poets? Naruda and e.e. cummings. But I never quite know how to write about what I like about poetry. There are only so many adjectives you can use before you begin to sound trite.

Well...here it goes. I'll think of something...I hope.

Home, Finally

So, I'm going to be headed home for Thanksgiving break. The first time since I left for the school year. I'm pretty excited, mostly because I might be able to crash some of the community's artsyfartsy happenings around town and maybe even blog about them...get kind of an island perspective on what I've been writing about all semester. Who knows what the high school and the theater community are up to at the moment. It will be fun to drop in on my old haunting grounds and look at it with a completely different eye.

Back here on campus, English Society is going as well as can be expected. It's fun to go to those meetings, because everyone wants to go to the readings that happen afterwards every Thursday. But it's also frustrating, because there are so many submissions to go through and we never have enough time. I realize Jabberwocky is an annual publication so we do have the rest of the year, but it worries me that the selection process is taking so long. Ah well...

The Visiting Writers Series is really fascinating this year. I think it's because I'm looking at it as a collective whole now instead of just a few random events that happen on this vast campus. The English Department is really on top of things. I think they could do a better job publicizing these events, because I kind of have to hunt for the dates and times and often miss some readings all together, but the calendar line-up is so full it almost doesn't matter. Almost.

Charles Simic

I really loved this reading, and I loved writing about it too. Charles Simic was just so personable! He answered questions at the end, he commented on each poem and made the audience laugh inbetween each reading...I was surprised that something like this could be made so intimate...between the author and the audience. Like Simic said, poetry is something done privately. It isn't everyday that you get to interact with the poet who is reciting what he's written, taken deep down from his very bones. I don't know if I would ever have the guts to do that, or the generosity really.

I took pictures for this reading as well, which will be posted to Masslive as per Scott's request. They aren't very high quality because the lighting was so bad, and because I have a dinky little point and shoot camera, but they'll do. Hope you enjoy it!

Photography...Effective? I Think So.

The two galleries I liked best from tonight's class assignment were:

- The Gallery on the Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

- The Gallery on the worldwide Days of the Dead

I liked the Fall of the Berlin Wall gallery for a number of reasons. Particularly, I appreciated how there were pictures from November 9, 1989, as well as photographs of the remains of the wall and the surrounding areas of Berlin from present-day. The fade effect was striking as well; there were quite a few photos from 1989 that prompted you to click, which then faded into photos of what that same area looks like today. It really made a statement and reiterated the significance of the 20-year anniversary of such a momentous historical event. I also appreciated how there weren’t only before and after photos of the Berlin Wall itself, but snapshots from 1989 of the actual people who helped take the wall down, and the shots of the crowd. It really added a human element to something read about in textbooks that I think makes this decades-old event shockingly real to those of us who were not alive when it occurred, and thus more relatable. The photos make tangible and relevant what the written word cannot. The paragraph describing what the photos are of and why they are important become secondary when juxtaposed against the reality of the situation that the gallery depicts.

The Days of the Dead gallery was fascinating not only because of the subject matter, especially so soon after Halloween, but because it showed such a wide array of cultures celebrating one of the more mysterious and intriguing times of the year. It illustrated beautifully the fact that people all over the world are connected through this tradition of celebrating and acknowledging death, and it did so in a wide variety of ways. From the eerie to the delightful, the gallery took us around the world and made a reality out of an abstract acknowledgement of worldwide cultural similarities. Yet again, the visual element of this feature article is what made it interesting. Photos like these, as I said before, add an intensely personal facet to what otherwise would have been words on a page. The photos draw the reader in; professionally and beautifully executed, the gallery shows instead of tells, and holds the reader there until the end.

Does a Top Three Work?

I've decided to post a top three list to Masslive on my three favorite reading venues in Amherst. I thought it'd be a fun idea, and relatively hassle-free seeing as I'm just talking about my own opinions. I've chosen Amherst Books, Amherst Cinema and Memorial Hall, which is on the UMass campus. It's definitely way more informal than my other Masslive articles, but since we've been discussing it so much in class I figured I'd just go for it and try the first-person, slightly less formal (in my mind) type of post. I don't know if top three is the best number for a list, since it's such a popular one, but beggers can't be choosers.

Happy Tuesday!

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Review

I went to see this performance last week, because I had heard that this company was renowned for their use of onstage multimedia - which meant text. They took historical literature and speeches and wove the words into the dance piece. I thought it would be an interesting twist on my literary beat, getting into a different genre of art. Interesting...yes. What I expected? Definitely not. My review doesn't even focus on the literary aspects of this performance because it was so disjointed. I left the theater completely confused. I'm still going to post it to MassLive because I like the different perspective it adds to my beat, but I won't deny that it's quite a stretch. It's funny, because I interviewed Kathryn Maguet, who is the Director for the Fine Art Concert Hall Center Series this year (the program that hosted the Bill T. Jones performance), and she said it was the performance she was most looking forward to because of it's unique modern style. Perhaps my eye isn't as sharp when it comes to the performing arts. You be the judge!

Homesick

I grew up on an island. 30 miles out to sea for the first 18 years of my life, I rarely saw the need to leave unless it was to go shopping for school clothes, or to visit family for brief periods of time. When I left to attend UMass, I hadn't yet grasped the notion that life is different outside of the Never-Never Land that Nantucket has always been to me. The year-round locals call leaving going to "America," as if we aren't a real part of the country at all. If you ever spend a year there, you'll know what they mean.

Home, for me, is the smell of brine. It is gray shingles and steely ocean waves. It is cobblestones and roads that lead only to the coast. No further.

I love school now, but my freshman year was brutal. For the first time in years, I felt the kind of panic a child feels when they know they are lost in a department store. Like I would never find my home again. Gradually, I realized that there was more to the world than 98 square miles of sand, and that it was livable, and exciting. It was freeing to be able to get into a car and drive and drive and drive and not hit a wall of water. I broke a barrier that year. I cut the umbilical cord that had connected me to Nantucket for so long the day I got on the ferry to leave, to start my life away from home. It was liberating and terrifying and there are many people I know who have never been able to do that. There are a few older people on the island who have never left, not once, and never will.

I realize how strange that is. I also know that it is the same for small towns all across America. I suppose I've always felt differently about my hometown, not only because it is mine, but because of it's identity as the furthest eastern point of the country. Alone out there, surrounded by the ocean, a busy little community completely detached from the mainland. Almost independent of it.

There is something romantic and eerie about it, and I know that I will never feel about any other place the way I do about that island. Living away from home, aside from the four insane summer months, I've been able to shake that mindset. I feel a bittersweet pang of nostalgia though, everytime I leave, when I remember my childhood years, and how I felt so physically and emotionally attached to a part of the earth. How it was alive to me, and how I loved it, as if it were family.

Sorry for the Minor Hiatus

The past two weeks have sadly been devoid of too many literary happenings around campus. I did recently attend a performance in the Concert Hall by Bill T. Jones and the Zane Dance company which incorporated a lot of text into the production. I'll be reviewing that shortly, hopefully to be posted onto Masslive.

English Society has been taking a break as well...the past three Thursdays meetings have been cancelled. It's not only inconvenient for my beat, but it's also disappointing because I really enjoy my time spent there. It's always fascinating for me to read my peers' work and hear what my fellow Jabberwocky staff have to say about it. This Thursday a whole lot of literary stuff will be going on. English Society will finally start meeting again, and there will be an author speaking at 8:00 PM in Memorial Hall.

As a part of the Visiting Writer's Series, Gillian Conoley will come to campus to discuss her upcoming novel and read from her past work. Novels will be on sale from Amherst Books at the end of the reading, so if I like what I hear maybe I'll pick one up and be able to write a legitimate review for Masslive.

Sorry about the lack of posts on UVoices lately, Scott. Things will be picking up shortly though!

The Death of Poetry?

This week's class assignment was to post a 400-600 referential article on Masslive that had to do with our beat. I chose an article from Newsweek about the supposed decline of poetry readership and popularity, and what it means for the verse-inclined community at large.

I'm actually really glad I stumbled across this article for the assignment, because it's something that's been in the back of my mind for awhile. Most of the writing I find myself doing for pleasure consists of poetry...and though it isn't very noteworthy I think it's something I'll continue to do for the rest of my life. If I could think of something I love that I want to make a career out of, it would be writing poetry and short-fiction. You can imagine that isn't the most lucrative of passions but I suppose that has never mattered very much to me. Living here in Amherst is kind of like living in a literary-oriented bubble. It seems like every corner you turn, there is something going on having to do with literature and verse. The very air we breathe in this part of New England seems saturated in poetry. I've never experienced that anywhere else, not even in my hometown of Nantucket, where the natural beauty is as breathtaking to me as the hills of Tuscany were during my visit there, four years ago. I think that's because the people here are so unique. Everyone is literate, everyone is searching for knowledge, it seems everyone has their own individual take on the world. That is what poetry conveys. I don't know, I'm kind of just rambling but the Newsweek article really got to me. Check it out on Masslive once it's posted. Hopefully I'll be able to gather my thoughts a little better there.

Cheers.