First Blog Entry

Hi Everyone! My name is Kathleen Kirby and I'm a sophomore at St. Lawrence. I'm planning on being an English major. I've always really enjoyed reading and writing from a very young age and during my senior year in high school I had an amazing English teacher that really made me realize how much I love the world of literature all of which helped me realize that it was something I wanted to seriously pursue here at college and for the rest of my life.
I'm from Wethersfield, Connecticut, which is a pretty average town as towns go. While I grew up in Wethersfield my whole life I went to an all girls boarding school in Simsbury, Connecticut for all four years of high school. I really had a great experience there and if given a choice there really is not anything I would change about my upbringing. I have two older brothers and a younger sister and I’m very close with all of my family. The dynamic of my family has certainly influenced my lifestyle. I’m very outgoing and really like to be active all the time. In high school I played soccer, basketball and lacrosse and while I don’t play on a team here I still stay active by going on hikes and playing pickup games with my friends here.
I really think that receiving feedback on work that you do is only as helpful as you let it be. I don’t think that there is any sincere advice that shouldn’t be taken at least once. Even if you find that it is something that you don’t like or doesn’t really work well with you, it can still prove to be a learning experience as you discover what sorts of things you do and don’t like. Receiving advice and constructive criticism from others is amongst the most helpful things you can do for yourself not just as a writer or poet but also in life in general.
As someone else already mentioned I definitely am heavily influenced by music of all sorts. I love how rhythms and words can be combined to evoke such strong feelings within people whether it be to make people want to get up and dance or even to just provoke deep thoughts. I’m excited that we will be learning a lot about contemporary poets because historically I’m most familiar with the classic poets of the past. My favorite poets include Wordsworth, Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, T.S. Eliot and John Donne. I know that covers a pretty broad range of poets and types of poetry however I love them all for different reasons. I love Wordsworth’s romanticism and I consider myself a true romantic at heart and love feeling a connection to his words. What I love about Emily Dickinson’s poetry is that it was purely written for herself and I feel as though the genuineness of her words is so unique to her poetry. I love Elizabeth Bishop and how personable her writing is. Whenever I read anything that she has written I feel like I am her only audience and she is almost confiding in me and explaining things to me in a way that she wants me to understand them. My favorite poem of hers would definitely have to be One Art. It exemplifies everything that I love about Elizabeth Bishop and the sophisticated way she maintains a sense of colloquialism in conveying her thoughts. I think good poetry is able to truly take you out of your own mind and allow you to see something from a completely separate perspective than your own. I truly enjoy feeling like I can appreciate the way someone else sees something because it allows you to feel more compassionate and less ego-centric. In this sense, good poetry can make you feel good about yourself. I’m looking forward to learning more about contemporary poetry, which is something that I really know very little about. Also, after being a part of the first class I am now truly looking forward to learning to be a better critic. Historically I’ve been taught to always look at poetry holistically and as a final product and I look forward to learning to analyze more in depth and even learn to scrutinize poetry which is something that I have very little experience doing. Can’t wait for this class to meet again! ☺