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!

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!

Off and Away

So, last Thursday I went to the first meeting for the English Association, which is basically in charge of the official UMass undergraduate literary journal "Jabberwocky." Looks like I'm on the staff now! It was a really great meeting, and everyone who was there was just as passionate about poetry and fiction as I am. I'm really looking forward to getting started on the magazine and keeping everyone updated through the blog.

After the meeting, we went to a poetry reading by Dara Wier. Aside from being an incredibly accomplished and acclaimed poet, she is also the director of the MFA program for Poets and Writers here at UMass Amherst.

The reading was overwhelmingly beautiful, and I found myself purchasing her newest book "Selected Poems" from the table in the back afterwards.

Her words were so personal, and so real, it was as if she were reading to every individual in the audience. Take a look at these three poems, and if you find yourself in a bookstore, pick up her latest book of poetry and find the poem "Longing." The solidity and sway of her imagery captures the imagination in a way that is so tangible, and so utterly lovely even when it is harsh, that the words stay with you long after you've finished reading them.