Tag: Oral Session 4 DL

The Hollows of the Heart

Presenter(s): Sarah Weishaupt

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Hennion

Oral Session 4 DL

Creative writing is unique in its ability to give form to our immersive inner worlds: it is the only art form that can give a direct voice to thought. In “The Hollows of the Heart,” I explore my experiences with mental illness and relationships through metaphor. When I conceptualized this piece, I endeavored to incorporate several themes, such as addiction, loneliness, and self- control; I constructed narrative elements in the vein of speculative fiction, also known as fantasy, to represent those themes within the story. However, through the revision process, I found that these themes and metaphors got muddled together, and that the story improved when I constrained it to one or two metaphors and ensured the plot was cohesive. In the end, the act of transforming my feelings though metaphor and sharing the product with others helped me clarify them and find closure.

Greener Fields

Presenter(s): Andrew Tesoriero

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Hennion

Oral Session 4 DL

“Greener Fields” is a story of unrequited love in a dystopian future. The ambiguity of the narrator—who has no name or gender—explores questions of identity and conveys the mutability of the story’s theme across genres. The narrator shares this sense of unknown identity and inner turmoil with the story’s setting: a future defined by corporate servitude and an endless war. As the narrator visits their childhood friend Aaron, now a veteran, in a strange facility, they are forced to confront their history with Aaron and their future without him. When writing this story, I considered how science fiction can explore themes of unrequited love in new ways. I wanted the larger world to be ambiguous as to focus the story on the two characters, and found through revision which details of the outside world are important to defining the worlds of the characters. “Greener Fields” confronts love and loss amidst the uncertainty of the future—while exploring how this future is painfully tethered to the past.

Poems

Presenter(s): Dakota Kelsey

Faculty Mentor(s): Jonathan Hill

Oral Session 4 DL

Since joining the Walter and Nancy Kidd Creative Writing Workshops in the Fall of 2018, my creative writing work has dramatically improved. My exposure to a curriculum of focused workshopping and powerful craft essays has refined my execution and understating of both poetic forms and structure. I have developed a stronger personal taste for and perception of the craft of poetry and wish to share it with the creative community. One effect of the workshop was the change of my poetry towards self-expression in a way I aspired to but couldn’t reach. Before the Kidd, I was overly reliant on form to produce meaning in poetics. I repressed my personal skill for narrative. Now, however, I have accepted form as a tool, not the soul of poetry. My presentation will showcase a selection of free verse poems to illustrate how poetry can be effective with less traditional form. I am grateful for my time in the program and how it has shaped my understanding of writing. I hope to use my newly refined skills to show both appreciation for the program and how important it is to constantly strive for improvement of an artistic craft.