Multicultural Conference

I attended a Multicultural Conference with my creative writing class this semester. We chose our workshops some time before the actual conference, and I was incredibly excited to be going. My first workshop was called "Nothing About This Is Binary", which was going to be a seminar on transgender rights and community, as well as the way that people were mistreated. Actually getting to the conference was an adventure and a half, really. It seemed like we were one of the last people to actually get there, maybe because we were all standing outside, busy being distracted by the architecture of the building we were entering and the college campus in itself. As we entered the conference, I was actually surprised to see so many older adults. I figured most of the groups would be like ours was, several students and one teacher. The beginning of the conference was kind of dull, but still held the air of excitement and change and radical ideas that I had hoped for. I remember one of the first introductory speakers saying "Raise awareness, raise funds, raise hell.", and the crowd erupting into cheers. That's stayed with me, as I feel like it really encompassed the heart of the conference. Rose and I both went to our first seminar, which I had been looking forward to days before the event. We were the only people there who looked like they were under twenty, but the person leading the seminar looked young. He was a transgender man that our teacher had actually gone to high school with when they were young. Our seminar was incredibly interesting and focused on the strife and difficulties that transgender people people face every day. In the beginning the teacher said "This isn't trans 101. We're actually talking about more in depth prejudices." That's really when I knew the seminar was going to be awesome. It was all about awareness and how different minority groups intersect. After the seminar, Rose and I hung back and talked to the person who was giving the workshop and chatted with him a little bit. Afterwards, we went down to have lunch with the rest of the our class. Halfway through the lunch we began another presentation for the whole conference. The man was an actor, who used creative outlets and written language to bring across a point on people who are LBGT, disabled, bullied, or suffering from mental illness. A lot of the program revolved around a central theme: depression. In all honesty, I started to cry, and a lot of my classmates did too. The things he said really stuck with me. After the program was over I felt a little bit shaky, because hearing such a powerful speech on things that affect me deeply in my everyday life really struck me at my core. I went to my second workshop by myself then, which was about how emotions and social awareness messages can be portrayed through body movements and theatrical arts. It wasn't really what I expected, but I enjoyed myself greatly. We did a lot of acting practices, and did a few messages ourselves. There were a lot more kids in that workshop and we all bonded in a weird, teenager like way. All in all, the conference was an incredible experience and I would recommend going to whoever would be able to make it there.

H.D. and the Imagism Movement

H.D., or Hilda Doolittle, was a literary leader of the Imagism movement. She is one of the more famous poets of the 1920's, and helped to shape the stylistic writing choices of the time period. H.D.'s poem "Sea Rose" identified and accentuated the style and technique used by Imagist writers.

 H.D. uses concrete ideas and themes to maintain her abstract, feeling based poems. Imagists pair the concrete with images to create a sense of emotion, and in "Sea Rose" H.D. pairs the rose with love, which is very traditional. However, the way that the rose and love is used in the poem is very unique. H.D. talks about the harshness of love in her first line , "Rose, harsh rose". While one can still tie the abstract thought of love to the concrete rose, the meaning is warped and follows the Imagist trend of rejecting purely sentimental language. The poem then goes on to describe the marred nature of love, how it has been thrown about and mangled, how it stands alone without the protection of a strong stem. The stem in itself can also be connected to the abstract thought of protection, strength, and in essence holds the flower (love) together. The poem also describes a lack of leaves around the flower which can be paired with nurturing and protection. All three parts of the flower use Imagist techniques to pair abstract emotions and symbols with a concrete item.

Continuously the abstract ideas that H.D. gives her concrete items work in contradiction with one another. She talks about the harshness of the rose and it's tattered holdings, turning one of the most symbolic representations of love right around on it's head. The rose and the stem and the leaves all have contradictions which I find incredibly alluring. The poem was a real slap in the face to Romantic poets, whom had always uses roses as a symbol of pure love and affection.

Karen Russell and the Ideal Author

Each individual has an ideal writer, one author who speaks to the reader in more than just paragraphs and phrases. Some authors speak volumes while others simply write volumes. If there ever were a situation in which I was a character in a book (and I might as well be, I'm just becoming self aware now I guess.) Karen Russell would be my ideal author. She is a young up and coming author who works usually in short stories and novels. Russel has published three books so far; two collections of short stories and one novel. Her novel is, in fact, an extension of a short story she wrote in her first book. I discovered Russell through my aunt, who had worked as an editor and publisher for Hachette Books and through her own literary escapades found Russel. She gave my her first collection of stories 'St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves' as a present for my birthday. I immediately fell in love with Russell's writing style and her stories, which reflect on the earnest nature of youth and growing up while also delving into the abnormal and bizarre parts of life. Both of these heavy themes are easily relateable for me as a young person growing up in an incredibly big and wild world. Russel's writing incorporates beautiful imagery and incredibly odd plot lines which keep readers both interested and astounded by the turns her stories can take. I can easily imagine myself as a character in one of her stories, not that my life is particularly odd or supernatural, but there is a touch of everyday abnormalities that Russell captures in her writing which is truly entertaining to read. The technical aspects of her writing in also captivating in her word choices and sentence structure. I can enjoy reading Russel's work countless times before I become even a little bit bored, and there are always certain passages and sentences that I can recall in her work, hidden jewels that lodge themselves in my memory, and that is what truly makes Russel a fantastic author.