Creative Writing Commons^™

“Around We Go”: The Apocalypse As Revolution And Revelation In David Mitchell’S Cloud Atlas, Emma G. Schilling

Student Publications

The tradition of global disasters in literature is long-standing and David Mitchell contributes to that discussion. For him, the possibility of political, social, and environmental collapse is imminent based on patterns he traced throughout human history. One common thread Mitchell weaves throughout his works is the presence and the relevance of the apocalyptic. In his best known work, Cloud Atlas, Mitchell explores the cyclical trends of humanity across time and space, including the recurrence of predacity, cruelty, and systematic oppression. Rather than being overwhelmed by a nihilistic reality, Mitchell centers Cloud Atlas around recurring figures of revolution, resisting and …

Synthesizing The Sublime And Beautiful: Aesthetics In Shelley's "Hymn To Intellectual Beauty", Christopher T. Lough

Student Publications

As a Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley bristled at rationalistic attempts to definitively categorize the human condition. Taking Edmund Burke’s treatise “On the Sublime and Beautiful” as his chief foil, Shelley explored aesthetic categories that certain strains of Enlightenment thought had held apart from one another. In my brief exegesis of his “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” from 1816, I build on Rudolf Otto’s concept of the numinous and the work of intellectual historian Frank Ankersmit to argue that Shelley presents a holistic account of experience with the ineffable.

Music Terminology And Context In Robert Browning’S “A Toccata Of Galuppi’S”, Natalie M. Dolan

Student Publications

In his poem describing a performance of a Baldassare Galuppi toccata, Robert Browning uses music theory terminology and historical context to explain the emotions inspired by the piece. Browning’s 19th-century narrator reflects on the lives of past audiences and on his own mortality as he addresses the deceased composer. This paper analyzes the use of musical references in explaining the narrator’s response to the performance. The analysis includes an examination of Galuppi’s compositional period and a discussion of the specific terminology that Browning uses to convey his narrator’s wariness of death.

From The Shire To The Somme: Comparing Military Themes In The Hobbit And Up To Mamtez, Alexander M. Remington

Student Publications

The Hobbit, by J.R.R Tolkien, tells the story of the titular Bilbo Baggins who goes on an adventure to help a band of dwarves retake their home from a dragon. Throughout the adventure, Bilbo and the dwarves endure many hardships similar to those of a British soldier fighting on the western front in the First World War. These hardships are especially comparable to Llewelyn Wyn Griffith's World War One experience described in his book Up to Mametz. Military themes of enforced adventure, constant and escalating danger, comradeship, and the devastation of war can also be found in both the Hobbit …

A Sign, Rachel M. Crowe

Student Publications

"A Sign" is a narrative about the experience of grief and how relationships are strengthened by shared experience. It tells the story of two different women who come together and inhabit a space of mutual understanding in the wake of their mother's death.

Béchamel, Jhanvi C. Ramaiya

Student Publications

"In fluid, confident prose, this essay deftly moves through fascinating historical background on one of the ‘mother sauces’ and into a story of mother-to-daughter education before turning its focus to a story of learning through a blend of past teachings and independent experiences.” - Elissa Washuta, Author, Judge for the Virginia Woolf Essay Prize

The Die Hards, Casey S. O'Higgins

Student Publications

A prequel to the Up-All-Nighters, a glimpse into the tragic tale of Rick Rearman: Vampire Hunter. The average man living a supernatural life, Rick Rearman hunts for creatures of the night to avenge his fallen mother. Rearman only wants three things in life, a girl, justice, and a new wardrobe. The spectacularly unspectacular Rick Rearman doesn't deserve a poetry; however, his story was too compelling to pass up.

Landed In America, Vera I. Ekhator

Student Publications

Poem about immigrant parents written by first-generation American.

The Ones Who Walk Away From The Ocean, Katia D. Rubinstein

Student Publications

When a mermaid mysteriously appears on the shore of a Northern island, the town's children become enthralled with the newfound mythic creature, while the adults become wary and untrusting.

Karma, Jhanvi C. Ramaiya

Student Publications

A short story about a woman, Indira, who undergoes a formative transformation in her understanding of Karma as she flees her mother's home, and finds her own with her three daughters.

The Disappearance Of The Hms Umbra, Francesca M. Costa

Student Publications

A sailor aboard the HMS Umbra has a strange run-in with an ominous fog that won't lift. As the days drag by, the weather is the least of his problems.

Missed Phone Calls, Ben S. Sherbacow

Student Publications

A poem about hope and reconnection.

Artemisia In The Metro, Emily A. Francisco

Student Publications

The “art poem” is an intriguing form of poetry. In writing about something that is inherently visual, a poet must remold a work of art into new material, drawing upon the work’s elements of form such as color, line, use of light, contrast, and composition to make his or her own reflective statement, beyond simply describing the artwork’s own content. In my poetry I aim to take this model of the “art poem,” and, through extended experimentation with this idea of ekphrasis (writing about art in a poetic context), intend to suggest a more intimate connection between art and language. …

New Topics, New Powers, And New Spirit: Walt Whitman And Allen Ginsberg And The Power Of The Poet, Peter W. Rosenberger

Student Publications

Walt Whitman was an enormous influence on Allen Ginsberg, which Lawrence Ferlinghetti recognized at the first public reading of “Howl” in 1955. Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, featured untitled twelve poems without rhyme, meter, or traditional line breaks. However, acknowledging a single influential figure for a countercultural writer is a somewhat uncommon phenomenon. Countercultural movements and countercultural artists tend to define themselves by standing against the dominant culture, an understandable instinct that yields important insights. Still the link between Ginsberg and Whitman is unmistakable. By analyzing the complex ties between an example of Whitman’s and Ginsberg’s major work …

Lessons In Tourism, Emily A. Francisco

Student Publications

A section poem in four parts that examines a number of experiences from the perspective of a female traveler, addressing themes such as dislocation of self, the remaking of identity, and the nature of female otherness within the global community.

Shieldmaiden, Allison A. Taylor

Student Publications

"Shieldmaiden" is a poem that examines J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series from a feminist perspective, focusing on the character of Éowyn and her influence on female readers of Tolkien's novels.

The View From The Front, Kathryn M. Gittings

Student Publications

A creative piece detailing the personal and public history of a small Pennsylvania town, specifically dealing with its crimes and their effect on the collective memory and atmosphere of the area.

Everything, Hannah M. Frantz

Student Publications

This is a memoir piece that details a tumultuous period in my life between departing for my study abroad experience in Rwanda and Uganda, struggling with what I encountered there, and then attempting to reintegrate into the same life prior to my departure. Specifically, it focuses on my time in northern Uganda, and a women I met in an IDP (internal displaced persons) camp who really made me think about what my role should be both there and at home. This piece explores a number of themes including guilt, blame, and, ultimately, a certain amount of forgiveness.

Just Another Girl, Julia D. Marshella

Student Publications

A non-fiction piece that explores the causes of the author’s depression while in college. While she is able to pinpoint specific events that have led to her unhappiness, she realizes that accepting her life in spite of these obstacles will allow her to move forward.

Cold And Calculating, Kathryn E. Slezak

Student Publications

This nonfiction essay investigates the relationship between eye contact and power in different situations. It brings up the idea that animals and humans are less different than often thought to be, and how body language is transcendent. It uses this underlying theme to investigate the author’s changing relationship with her father.

Red Rose, Sara Lauren Purifoy

Student Publications

Red Rose follows the narrator’s innermost thoughts and feelings of abruptly being immersed into a culture very different from her own. While hiking with her brother, a second year environmental Peace Corps volunteer, to visit the home and garden of a Nicaraguan native, she reflects on the changes she sees in her brother and her inability to communicate in a foreign country. She struggles to overcome her feelings of linguistic isolation while still being fascinated by the culture around her. The piece ends on a lovely image of universal understanding.

Being [T]Here, Dustin B. Smith

English Faculty Publications

When you awoke from the dream, in your early thirties, you knew, as you’ve never known anything else in all your seventy-plus years, that what you’d found was real. The dream began with you sitting in a church, head bowed in prayer. Your eyes opened slowly, and you noticed that you were wearing brilliantly colored, beaded moccasins. You stood abruptly, pushed open the mahogany gate that separated the pew from the center aisle of the church, and began to run. The dream then proposed a seemingly endless and entirely quotidian set of difficulties in The City, and led eventually to …

Prometheus's Role Of The Poet, Sarah M. Connelly

Student Publications

This essay examines the characterization of Prometheus in the opening speech of Prometheus Unbound, by Percy Shelley, through the lens of Shelley’s “Defense of Poetry” in order to argue Prometheus’ existence as a poet. By giving humanity wisdom and bridging the gap between logic and compassion, Prometheus becomes the point from which imagination, beauty, art, and poetry stems. Prometheus’ role developed into a model of morality and love in contrast to the fear and spite of Zeus, whose influence is reflected in the evils of mankind. Yet, through the torturous reign of Zeus, Prometheus transcends his hate by retracting his …

R.A., Fred G. Leebron

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sanguine, Kathryn Rhett

English Faculty Publications

Health care in America: even my doctor lines up for the community multiphasic blood screening, rather than going to the regular lab.

It costs thirty-two dollars for the usual screen, plus ten dollars for thyroid, or PSA or B-12. The blood-drawing used to be held at the local rec park building. Now it’s at the county emergency services building, outside of town on a brand-new winding country road. They could just as well hold it at the public library, or firehouse, or agricultural center—any large room usable for voting, or the traveling reptile show, could be set up for phlebotomy. …

Wayward, Kathryn Rhett

English Faculty Publications

It’s hard to imagine, now, how it was that I took up with that boy in South Carolina, but facts are facts. William Buchanan Redmond was lawless and drawling, full of sideways glances and outrageous proposals. He went by Cannon.

One night on Hilton Head Island, where I was staying with a friend’s family (thanks to private school I had friends with houses on Nantucket, etcetera, though I lived in a modest house with my mother and sister that we were renovating to resell), he approached me at an outdoor concert. A guitarist was playing a sing-along rendition of “Take …

The Exchange Student, Fred G. Leebron

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Out Cold, Fred G. Leebron

English Faculty Publications

Walter had just completed his five-mile route on the treadmill and was headed from the gym to his car in a nearby parking lot - he was in fact circumnavigating a field on which a few idiotic teenagers were kicking a soccer ball at a field hockey goal, so as not to approach near their game - when he was struck in the side and back of his head by something large and forceful and solid and round, and it sent his glasses flying from his face and his bright white tennis cap skittering from his head and it flattened …

Conception: A Personal History, Kathryn Rhett

English Faculty Publications

November 19 is Remembrance Day in Gettysburg, the day that Lincoln dedicated part of the battlefield as a cemetery for the Civil War dead in 1863. That year in July the dead lay on the battlefield, on the farmers’ fields planted with crops and in the summer-green woods where they had taken positions behind boulders and tree trunks. Some lay covered with dirt, and others just lay bare to the weather. When land for a cemetery was set aside, the townspeople moved the dead to proper graves.

As a citizen of Gettysburg more than a century later, I carry no …

In Transit, Kathryn Rhett

English Faculty Publications

There is the birthplace and there is the deathplace. We are in the deathplace. The deathplace is Bad Aibling, in southern Germany, just north of the Austrian border. To get here, we have driven through the Tyrol, the Italian-Austrian-German alpine region in which gingerbread houses stack up on the green slopes of valleys.

Bad Aibling sounds fitting for a deathplace, a bad place, though in fact “bad” means “bath.” As we drive on a two-lane road, we see cars parked in bunches on the grassy shoulder, and it seems people might be bathing, dipping their feet in the country creeks …