YO class. Cool Courtney here, checking in to let you know a little about myself...

I am a senior English-writing major with an educational studies minor and am finally getting around to a poetry class here at SLU.  Coming into my college career I initially intended to major in Psychology mostly because I love to think about the way people think.  What I realized as I continued in my career here however was that I also love to read and write about the way we think, therefore I pursued my English major.  Being able to effectively communicate with people is invaluable and a skill, which I think, can always be improved. What amazes me most with each new English course I take is how many different styles and ways there are to share our thoughts.  I also love the way language twists and rolls off every individual tongue a bit different.  What continuously amazes me about our language and the human race for that matter is that every bit of life we see, we see it differently.  Our role as writers is to find a way to let people into the way our mind twists and turns.  That journey, that constant urge to find a common ground with the people around me, is what pushed me into an English major and in short is why I enjoy it so much.

On another note, I was born in Deerfield Massachusetts and lived in good ol’ Western Mass for the first half of my childhood.  I lived in a dark stained ‘saltbox’ with forest green trim and a steep, long winding gravel driveway, which always gave us trouble in the winter.  My parents drove my brother and I to school everyday in an embarrassingly clunky Ford truck that we bought from family friends for one dollar.  Both my mom and dad taught at the small private school in town.

            Deerfield, I believe, was the perfect place to explore the first ten years of my life.  The woods that surrounded our house kept me busy and the stream down the hill to the left of my house was my sanctuary.  My mom always said I was the best child, constantly entertaining and engulfing myself with my games.  I was either outside exploring the dirt and life around me, or inside my room quietly assembling my stuffed animals in front of my easel in order to teach them that day’s lesson.   Either way, life was good in Deerfield until my parents up and moved us to the other side of the state and I was placed in the middle of suburbia.  My next home was in Newton Massachusetts, which was much different from the outdoor-sy life of Deerfield, but I love it nonetheless.  Suburbia and the close proximity to Boston was a prime location for my teen years. 

            Aside from writing, I love to be active and competitive.  I have been able to continue my athletic career throughout college as both a member of the women’s soccer and lacrosse teams here at SLU.  Besides ballin’ out on the field, I also love to sing in the Singing Sinners (the women’s acapella group on campus).  

            In terms of getting feedback on my writing, I can only remember good experiences.  I love to read my pieces aloud and love hearing feedback, negative or positive.   I have taken creative non-fiction and fiction at both levels and this is my first poetry class so I am excited to see what comes of it.  It is a genre that I have become more intrigued with lately however don’t feel as though I have much grounding in the ‘classics’ per say.  I admire how poets have the ability to pick and mold words in such a delicate and deliberate way to fit exactly what they have intended to share.  I think the simplicity of it’s appearance and the complexity of its’ meaning is my favorite part about poetry.

            When I think back to my first experience with poetry I think of Langston Hughes’ “Dreams” because it was the first poem I had to memorize and recite in front of a class:

            Hold fast to dreams

            For if dreams die

            Life is a broken-winged bird

            That cannot fly.

            Hold fast to dreams

            For when dreams go

            Life is a barren field

            Frozen with snow.

           

            I admire many of Langson’s poems, but this one specifically because of the brevity and simplicity to the eye and the meaningful message.  I also admire the way the poem flows and rhymes in an almost nonchalant way, which slides right off your tongue. 

            What I look forward to the most in this class is not just the opportunity to play with my own style as a poet but to learn from the best.  I look forward to reading and reading and reading the poems that have come before me and talking about them.  I guess that is why I am an English major though, right? J