Creative Writing Commons^™

Dark As Day, Rachel Keady

CMC Senior Theses

“All works, no matter what or by whom painted, are nothing but bagatelles and childish trifles... unless they are made and painted from life, and there can be nothing... better than to follow nature." - Caravaggio

In the fall of 2021, I registered to take “Italian Baroque Art” with Professor Gorse at Pomona College, for the spring of 2022. Professor Faggen, one of my advisors, encouraged this and piqued my interest in the characters of this world. After some casual online research, I was transfixed by one artist in particular: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. How could I not be struck …

On The Total Communicative Efficacy Of Music And Its Synthesis To Written Word Through Bob Dylan And Kendrick Lamar, Skyler Addison

CMC Senior Theses

In a social conversation, words spoken carry less than 35% of the interaction’s social meeting, with 65% conveyed by the non-verbal. While poetry relies on the word and it's subtext, songwriting may also weld the other 65%. By dissecting the dynamic communicative aspects of song, modern poets may find useful ways in which they can make their lines have more staying power with the listener, encompassing both the rhythmic catchiness of their lines to an all-encompassing emotive transfer. We may isolate the interwoven components of a song that dictate how a story is told in order to better understand how …

The Joy Of Listening: Three Voices In The Poetry Of Wisława Szymborska, Mimi Thompson

CMC Senior Theses

One of the greatest feats that a poet may achieve in his or her lifetime is to develop a voice so characteristic of themself, it would be impossible to confuse it with that of any other poet. Polish-speaking and non-Polish-speaking scholars alike have agreed that the voice of 1996 Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska is utterly distinct, despite the fact that her poems explore a wide range of topics and are told from multiple narrative perspectives, rarely featuring herself through any personal details. How, then, is it possible for hundreds of poems, each with their own narrator, to still be “heard” …

The Duality Of Gnome, Koss Klobucher

CMC Senior Theses

Koss Klobucher's senior thesis, The Duality of Gnome, is a six-part collection of short stories written, edited, and compiled under the mentorship of James Morrison. Themes include death, absurdity, the afterlife, and love.

El Guerrero Obsidiana, Marvin P. Sarkar Bynoe

CMC Senior Theses

This work of creative writing explores the role of the maroons, or escaped Africans, in Caribbean plantation society. The novel pays homage the tradition of creole storytelling and asserts the importance of this practice in creating more complete historiographic narratives. Incorporating the themes of magic, rebellion, darkness/light, heroism, and brutality characteristic of Afro-latinx literature. The work attempts to continue the decolonizing work of disrupting the capitalist dichotomy between freedom and enslavement which threatens to erase the multiplicity of black existence in the colonial Caribbean.

Mistaken Murder And Written Womanhood: The Evolution Of Evelina Edwards In Late Eighteenth-Century And Early Nineteenth-Century Bath, England, Amanda Mell

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the major themes and literary influences of Jane Austen’s novels through the voice of Evelina Edwards, a fictional girl born in Bath, England in 1784. Over the course of nine years, Evelina reconstructs her social world in a series of diary entries and letters, mirroring the anxieties and concerns of real women during the Regency era. Her writing juxtaposes the novel of manners with mystery, both satirizing trivial concerns and confronting emotional trauma in response to death and social isolation. Class hierarchy and gender roles placed heavy restrictions on women’s freedom, forcing them to carefully calibrate the …

Populism: An Exploration Into The American Case Through The Academic Literature, Data Analysis, And Fiction, Maxwell Knowles

CMC Senior Theses

The twenty-first century has seen a rise in populist leadership and rhetoric throughout the globe, with the United States standing as one powerful case. This thesis hopes to develop the “story” of populism from multiple perspectives, attempting to not only inform but change the way we approach the populist movement in America, and perhaps, the world. In Part I, I summarize and blend much of the core literature written on populism and economic change, developing the story that populism in America today has its roots in the significant techno-economic and cultural paradigmatic shifts of the 1970s. Social media and an …

Durability Of Bone, Blake Lapin

CMC Senior Theses

Blake Lapin's senior thesis, Durability of Bone, is a five-part collection of poems written, edited, and compiled under the mentorship of Henri Cole. Themes include loss, love, travel, disability, and home.

La Oscuridad Detrás De Los Ojos Azules, Anoush Baghdassarian

CMC Senior Theses

Una obra de teatro qué se trata de un conflicto moral durante la última dictadura militar en Argentina.

A play in two acts about a moral conflict during the last military dictatorship in Argentina.

The Places That Became Home: A Collection Of Short Stories And Memories, Stephanie Ewing Mace

CMC Senior Theses

This is a collection of short stories and memories from the eight places that I have lived. Through these stories and memories, I reflect on themes of identity and community. I also consider the idea of home: what defines a home, how we make a place feel like a home, and what transforms a city or a town into a home. Each chapter also includes my own original designs and photographs.

The stories about Sharon and Westwood, small towns in Massachusetts, focus on childhood and familial relationships. The narratives about St. Louis, Missouri and Toluca Lake, California, consider the transition …

The International Community's Response To The Hypothetical Emergence Of Superheroes, Brittany Nicole Woods

CMC Senior Theses

In a golden era for comic based media, this paper uses the hypothetical emergence of superheroes to analyze the assumptions and predictions of three international relations theories: realism, liberalism, and constructivism. Comics consistently reflect the real world, paralleling events and concepts discussed in foreign affairs dialogues. The thought experiment, and the comic genre itself, provides a vehicle for thinking broadly about the political and social ramifications of successful or failed problem solving, state interaction, and scientific advances.

The Appetizer And Other Poems, Sam Blomberg

CMC Senior Theses

Thrust into a world of poetry, I’ve grown to embrace the poetic lens. Each topos, each trope, each rhyme, each cliché, each morning morning’s minion, each reduction to a state of almost savage torpor, each nightingale, each ode to an obscure, inanimate object, and every single Stella of the skies holds special significance hidden to the naked eye. Not insamuch as something undiscoverable upon ponderance. Rather, a way to contemplate the physical. The Ah, Sunflower! reaction. That is not to say that poets have a supernatural eyesight to certain beautiful images. My eyes do not see any more dandelion puffs …

Magic Wood, Nadia Stosija Barulich

CMC Senior Theses

This project is a translation of Liu Qingbang's novella 'Shénmù' from Chinese into English. It is also accompanied by an analysis of the text and Li Yang's movie 'Blind Shaft', which was based on the novella.

The Circuit: An Original Television Series, Grace T. Ding

CMC Senior Theses

Between good and evil there's a whole lot of gray: Welcome to The Circuit.

A shady private security firm recruits criminals straight out of prison and sells its services to the highest bidder, saint and sinner alike (mostly sinners). Through the trials and tribulations of a diverse ensemble cast, the show explores some of my absolute favorite themes in storytelling: gray morality, found families, and unlikely heroes. Follow our gritty and guarded lead Shaye as she struggles to tame a group of talented and contentious ex-cons under the shadow of her ambitious and manipulative father, all the while struggling to …

Creative Writing Thesis: Poetry, Desmond Bonhomme

CMC Senior Theses

The title of this compilation of my own creative writings is Trees, Breathe, Paper. This unique collection of poetry, short stories and prose contains a range of work, composed from 2002-2012. The thematic goal of this undertaking is to ballast as many implicit and explicit meanings as are comprehensible, and to extrapolate a distinct spectrum of latent and straightforward explanations with discernible psycho-analytical accuracy. We all know poetry is truly formless and based on springs of natural inspiration. Thus, we derive our purest inspiration from the natural world and we prune it in its unfiltered, raw state. Poetry is an …