---

BY QUITTERIE GOUNOT

In print | Published April 29, 2010

It is not a secret that creative writing is a common practice at Swarthmore, yet it seems mostly confined to a few literary publications. While students are often invited to their peers’ theatrical, musical or dance performances, they are rarely exposed to their poetry. This Thursday, there will be a unique opportunity to celebrate the work of our peers — not one, but 12 of them.

Each of the students in Professor Nathalie Anderson’s Poetry Workshop will share some of his or her own original poetry as the culmination of a semester’s hard work. Over the course of the past four months, these students have strived to hone their own poetic voices and help each other toward that goal. Although they started off writing freely, they soon had to embrace a set of constraints. Each week had a theme, usually related to form. As such, each writer produced a diverse collection of poems ranging from prose poems to quatrains. They also explored a broad array of styles and voices, trying their hand at poetry from another gender’s perspective, confessional poetry or political poetry, depending on the weekly theme.

Students have found the constraints imposed on their poetry both challenging and stimulating. June Xie ’11 noted that they could sometimes be “suffocating.” Rosanna Kim ’13 expressed her own initial distrust.

“I think I was really adverse to [form constraints] at first. As a writer, you worry that the form will transform the content, that your idea will be changed,” Kim said.

Still, most students seemed to find guidance and meaningful creative potential within the boundaries of their assignments. Echoing the thoughts of several classmates, Mary Jean Chan ’12 felt that if “you don’t have anything much you want to write about, you can get it from the form.” Kim reported that these poetic exercises gave her a greater appreciation for poetry writing as a craft, and the deliberate choices that it implies.

“So what if I write in two, three, four lines? I walked away from class really appreciating the craft of poetry and how meaningful it can be,” Kim added.

For these poets, their work is by no means an isolated activity. Everyone is required to share his or her poems with the entire class for comments and critique. Students have developed a real affinity for each other’s work and have learned from each other’s distinctive styles and probing suggestions.

“It’s really inspiring each week to hear 12 different voices,” Aaron Dockser ’13 said. Xie also mentioned that she “found voices [she] want[ed] to aspire towards.”

Students in the class evoked specific lines or aspects of their classmates’ work that have stuck with them. Chan credits Xie for encouraging her to make greater use of the page as a part of form. One student thought of Joel Swanson ’10 when encountering particularly vivid imagery. Another one cited first-year Diana Patton’s exhortation “Find your own damn Jesus”; someone else quoted first-year Julia Finkelstein’s words, “Love is short and forgetting is so long.”

While they are not required to rewrite their poems after they have been critiqued, many choose to do so. “[The critique] makes you want to go back to the poem and see what it can become,” Nick Gettino ’13 said.

It is clear that for these 12 individuals, the workshop is much more than just a class. The course, for many of them, is part of a greater, very personal writing practice. Anderson encourages her students to write every day if possible and many heed this advice.

Swanson writes every morning. “It is important to me to make time to write every day, to take stock of where I am, and see if I have anything to say that day,” he said.

Dockser has also written a poem every day that he has been at Swarthmore. “Sometimes I get home from a party at 2 A.M. and I realize that I haven’t written. So I go write,” he said.

Gettino, like many of his classmates, expressed his frustration over finding himself suddenly inspired at times when he cannot stop and write. Kim carries a journal around to jot down the images or lines that might occur to her.

“Every day, I wrestle with the ideas and the assignments — even if I don’t write,” she said.

The Poetry Workshop’s final reading will take place today, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in the Scheuer Room.

---

« RETURN TO LIVING & ARTS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »