Creative Writing Commons^™

Haiku In West Coast Poetics: What Kigo?, Judy Halebsky

Faculty Authored Books and Book Contributions

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When I attended the Meguro International Haiku Circle last year, I asked for ideas for presentation topics. Someone suggested that I explain why poets in the U.S. are not overly concerned with kigo. Coming from a lineage of California poets influenced by haiku and Japanese poetry, I am not sure if I understand the subtleties of this challenge. However, the question of kigo brings up a larger issue: the cultural translation of haiku in the work of English language poets. Today, I would like to touch on the issues that have shaped how free verse poets in California translate …

All Four Knot, A Cover Story, Sean Adrian Smith

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

No abstract provided.

Fetus: An Exploration Of Human Nature Through The Issue Of Abortion, Grant Collis Dinsdale

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

The issue of abortion touches deep emotions in individuals and continues to be a controversial topic in the United States. The Right to Life movement believes strongly that life begins at conception, and to abort an unborn fetus is an act of murder. The supporters of the Pro-Choice movement, however, believe that a woman has the right to choose what happens with her body, and this takes precedence over other considerations. This work of fiction uses the above controversy as its framework. The primary narrator is a fetus in utero who tells the story of how his father and mother …

Remix Perspective: Transdisciplinary Insights For The Art Of Writing, Marianne Rogoff

English and Creative Writing | Faculty Scholarship

How do creative writers transform the complexity of life into literature? Remix Perspectives presents a bricolage synthesis of transdisciplinary insights for workshop leaders and creative writers, appropriated from selected artistic and literary voices from more or less the last hundred years. Seminal concepts from arts such as painting, poetry, dance, music, and photography are gathered here as they inform the arts of literary fiction and creative nonfiction. Thinkers from philosophy, psychology, literary theory, complexity, and metaphysics address the inner and outer realms where the work of the writer is generated and goes forth.

Eki Mae Poems [Volume 3], Ilya Kaminsky, Yuka Tsukagoshi, Judy Halebsky, Ayumu Akutsu

Faculty Authored Books and Book Contributions

Bilingual Japanese-English poetry journal.

Eki Mae Poems [Volume 2], Brenda Hillman, Yuka Tsukagoshi, Judy Halebsky, Ayumu Akutsu

Faculty Authored Books and Book Contributions

Bilingual Japanese-English poetry journal.

Gina Bonakdar Nahai: Fantasies Of Escape And Inclusion, Mojgan Behmand

Collected Faculty Scholarship

Cry of the Peacock, Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith, and Caspian Rain are the enticing titles of Gina Bonakdar Nahai’s Iran-focused novels, published in 1991, 1999, and 2008 respectively. And the titles hold true: the narratives reflect the pain, melancholy and dream-like beauty conveyed in the titles as they divulge characters who strive to escape the restrictions of their community, religion, government, and gender. In the meantime, as the author depicts these fantasies of escape and attempts at flight –and frequently harshly punishes them–, the characters achieve a hitherto unknown feat, namely the depiction of Jewish Iranian main characters …

Eki Mae Poems [Volume 1], Judy Halebsky, Yuka Tsukagoshi, Fumiko Yamanaka, Ayumu Akutsu

Faculty Authored Books and Book Contributions

Bilingual Japanese-English poetry journal.

Review Of "Into The Beautiful North" By Luis Alberto Urrea, Marianne Rogoff

Collected Faculty Scholarship

"There are still many places in the world where electricity is a luxury and bandidos regularly assert power over powerless villages, where a plate of beans has to suffice as daily bread, and the lure of Hollywood cowboys and television heroes encourages the imagination to believe in fantasies. Escapism is a form of hope. The men of Tres Camarones, the dusty pueblito in Sinaloa, Mexico, at the center of Luis Alberto Urrea’s new novel, Into the Beautiful North, have escaped to the U.S. The fantasy was, the men cross the border, acquire riches, and return to the land of lagoons …

Is The Internet Ruining Our Lives? On "The Cult Of The Amateur" By Andrew Keen, Marianne Rogoff

Collected Faculty Scholarship

"Not everyone will agree with the premise of Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the Rest of Today’s User-generated Media Are Destroying Our Economy, Our Culture, and Our Values, recently out in paperback. Are you a throwback if you do? Are you a cultist if you don’t? Which is worse?"

In Search Of Our Brains: On Teaching "Proust Was A Neuroscientist" By Jonah Lehrer, Marianne Rogoff

Collected Faculty Scholarship

"I have always wanted to teach a semester of freshman English using a single text, moving students via rich allusions out beyond it for further reading according to their individual interests. Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer is a collection of essays linking contemporary findings in neuroscience with visionary knowledge dreamed up by writers and artists a hundred years ago. Concepts like Walt Whitman's poetic "body electric" and Virginia Woolf's psychological "stream of consciousness" are proven to have physical origins in our brains and bodies. I created a whole course around the book in Fall '08 at California College …

Making Peace With Contradictions: Reflections Of Territory And Identity In Israel/Palestine, Chase Clow

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Both historical and personal essay, this culminating project is a creative non-fiction work exploring the modern historical roots of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Part I surveys the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Palestine, centering on two key figures: Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion (1886-1973), and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muslim Leader Hajj Amin al-Husayni (1897-1974). Interweaving historical fact, myth, personal story, and biography, with Israeli and Palestinian poetry and poses by the author, themes such as relationship to land, attachment to home, and the displacement created by industrialization upon a traditional, rural lifestyle are explored. Part II relates the …

Review Of "Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry", Marianne Rogoff

Collected Faculty Scholarship

"From the center and edges of the vast and diverse landscape of contemporary Mexico, whose 'boundaries are largely the accidents of history,' the poets in Reversible Monuments ponder the limits of consciousness and search for meaning(s)."

Irreconcilable Differences With God: On "The Monk Downstairs" By Tim Farrington, Marianne Rogoff

Collected Faculty Scholarship

"The Monk Downstairs is an easy read about God. It seriously ponders the split between the contemplative life and life in the world while describing the most bedeviling aspects of simple survival on the secular plane."

Two Necessities Of Poetry: Plenitude And Exuberance, Marianne Rogoff

Collected Faculty Scholarship

"Alicia Ostriker advocates a 'poetics of ardor,' one which is not detached, objective, or merely intellectual, instead a poetry that embraces a big-hearted and practical definition of what erotic means. Dancing at the Devil’s Party is mostly about women’s poetry but Ostriker also reminds us of the wide-reaching sensuality of Whitman, Hopkins, Keats, and other sexy male forebears who permitted love to appear in their work."