Looking for inspiration? A breath of fresh air? A few minutes’ diversion?
Then stop by and visit some of the student pages above. It is our hope, as a creative writing classs, that our work can bring joy, laughter, reflection, or even tears to the readers who come by to browse.
Visit everyone or just your favorites. Make sure to stop by ”The ‘I Like That!’ Page.” It features the best examples of first-draft work from each day’s writing activities, as voted on by the class.
Here is a poem by Richard Wilbur that we discuss at the beginning of the course:
The Writer
In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.
I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.
Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.
But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which
The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.
I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash
And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark
And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,
And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,
It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.
It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.
A Note to My Students:
To all of this year’s creative writing students, as you sit “humped and bloody,” flinging yourselves as you “batter against the brilliance,” I wish you a lucky passage to whatever waits for you outside your own window.
A Note to Everyone:
If you like the students’ work, please tell them so!
5 RULES FOR COMMENTING:
1. Real first names only; never use a last name.
2. No addresses, phone numbers, or other identifying information.
3. Be respectful, please.
4. Don’t write about other people, just yourself and the author.
5. Keep comments focused on writing.
Thank you for visiting!
