Purpose

I will not delve too deeply into the preceding writings. It seems silly to post something I’ve written – be it fiction or poetry – then have to back it up with explanation. It is presumptuous on my part to think that people interested in what I’ve written cannot draw their own conclusions and having to justify my work would imply that it cannot stand on its own. One day I’d like to see a collection of my poetry in the window of some bookstore, so I certainly hope it can. I have been contemplating starting a blog, but I have trouble with the idea of exposing thoughts and ideas to an internet world. Firstly, I don’t believe my thoughts hold enough substance to be worth reading if you don’t know me personally, and they tend to become long, drawn-out ramblings that even I have trouble keeping up with. I’d like to think of myself as a private person. Secondly if I am to enter my own thoughts I’d prefer to do it through my poetry and fiction. But I have been encouraged on several different occasions to start one “to get my writing out there.” I am also attempting this, so that I may maintain a certain level of sanity and linear logic toward my upcoming senior year project.
I am about to enter into my last year of college. It will be far more daunting than I ever imagined and I will not bore anyone reading this with the complications of how it became this way. Suffice to say, it is conundrum in which I find myself. I am about to endure the most grueling year probably of my entire education, for I will have to undertake an overload of equally demanding classes for my fall, winter, and spring quarter in order to finish within four years and hopefully get a degree out of it. Not only this, but I also find myself studying in a major (art history) that I have lost all passion for (if ever there was any to begin with) in a school where passion is perhaps the one thing to make all the money spent and all the time and effort invested worth anything. I attend an art school, and one can imagine how frustrating it can become when the peers around you are engrossed with something they’ve known they’ve wanted to do all their lives and are content doing it for years to come.
I love art, want it to be a part of my life, and I have found many of the art history classes I’ve taken interesting. I have a hard time though delving into any piece of artwork and picking it apart or dissecting to a point that it seems I’ve lost sight of the entire image. I simply don’t think that analytically, and would much rather be on the side of creating rather than the side of watching those create. But I based this decision to study art history on great haste. It was a poor decision I regret very much. I also chose it on the fact that I can’t make any money from writing poetry, but I’ve never been particularly practical.
Regardless of how I came into this circumstance, I am also required as a senior to write a senior thesis. I was lucky enough to be able to write on something I am genuinely interested in and something I hope will help me with my poetry. I will be writing on Allen Ginsberg’s photography as well as his poetry from the Beat Generation.
I took a class on the Beats this past winter and was enthralled by the writers of the movement and their work. Then this summer I visited the National Gallery to see the first exhibition of Ginsberg’s photos. It seemed to be appropriate timing for me to choose such a topic, for there seems to be a certain revival of his work, at least in the DC area. I was lucky enough to get word about a reading of Howl from his dear friend Anne Waldman at the restaurant Busboys and Poets, and even was able to introduce myself to her and ask her a little bit about the late Ginsberg.
Of course I have not written anything for this thesis yet, nor have I an angle in which to write out my argument and am still grappling with the oncoming storm of a year that is fast approaching. I am hoping that this blog will act as a way to keep my wits about me and help organize my thoughts on writing the paper, as well as incorporate my own work when I can.
I began this blog with two pieces I’ve written, both with attempt of incorporating art both visual and of the written word. Cold at Midnight is loosely inspired by the character and death of Neal Cassady, another Beat. Reading more into him, he has become a fascinating personality for me. Eschewal was written after a fury of creative block. I had to write something for my poetry class, and wound up staring at a print I own of Christina’s World. After numerous re-writes beyond the class, I came up with Eschewal.