Creative Writing: Week 8

This week in creative writing we started the first half of the book "Maps to Anywhere" by Bernard Cooper. This is a series of essays written about his life. He uses humor as well as vivid description to talk about his life and significant memories he has. I will talk about a couple areas in the book that I found interesting and why I enjoyed the passages.

The first section that I enjoyed was called "Capiche?". The main thing I took away from this passage was one simple sentence which I found very profound. It reads, "But lies are filled with the modulations of untranslatable truth, and early this morning when I awoke, birds were restless in the olive tress." I thought that this was a beautiful sentence that read almost like poetry. It was quite mesmerizing to read.

The next section that I enjoyed was "The Biggest, Most Beautiful Balcony in the World". In this section I loved how it was titled, even though the point of it was that it was not the biggest and most beautiful balcony. He was not satisfied. He wanted something bigger and grander. He wanted a more "ornate balcony to gaze up at". You can really feel how unsatisfied he is.

My favorite section of the whole first part was the larger section called "The Wind Did It". This is a series of essays revolving around him and his father. On page 48 he said that he could divide his fathers history into three phases. I liked how he stated this. You do not usually divide your parents like into phases. The other thing that I loved about this section was the humorous banter between him and his father. My favorites were the one about the trip to Machu Pichu and the discussion about the mole on his arm.

Creative Writing: Week #7

Over Mid-Winter break I ready the preface, editors introduction, and the first chapter to In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Non-Fiction. This was a shorter piece but it was packed with information. I will first talk about the preface, then the editors introduction and finally the first chapter.

The preface to In Short was written by Bernard Cooper. He starts out the preface by talking about a Salvodor Dali painting. It provides a great introduction to what turns into him having an appreciation for fine arts and starting to write poems. He goes into more depth about his own writing struggles and processes then displays gratitude on being included in In Short. It is clear that he really looks up to and is inspired by the authors in this book.

The next part was the introduction by the editors. This part i found to be the most interesting. Mainly because it went into the history of Shorts and how it came about, as well as different writers that have influenced it. They also discuss how in this collection of shorts they tried to get all different kinds to show the variety of them.

The final thing we were given was one of the Shorts by Annie Dillard titled "Lenses". To be completely honest I did not care for the content of the story at all. However, she has a striking way of describing things in a very visual manner. In one paragraph she describes looking at the swans through her binoculars and she describes them perfectly. You can see what she has written almost right in front of you.