Assignment 0: First Blog Entry

What are you studying, and why do you like it?

I am currently an English Major and Spanish Minor. Regarding English, I find that it has always been an academic area in which I've exhibited some extent of natural ability. When it comes to math or science I find myself lagging behind and not understanding any of the necessary equations/calculations. However, when it comes to English I've always been able to spell well and express my ideas orally and/or in writing. As a career goal I hope to go straight from St. Lawrence to graduate school to get my Phd. in English Literature and aspire to be an English Professor. As to my minor in Spanish, as in the case of English, Spanish has always agreed with my few natural academic abilities. After taking some very challenging Spanish courses I've opened my eyes to the world of Spanish literature and how amazing both Spain and Latin America's cultures really are. During this summer I hope to teach illegal Mexican immigrants from my home town how to read and write in English so that they can (hopefully) experience the joy I experienced in learning their language.

Where are you from, and what's it like there?


I am from Lowville, New York, which is about an hour and a half south of St. Lawrence University. The town houses no more than 1,700-1,800 people, so as you can imagine, it is rather small. My home is, on the whole frigid and the snow is ridiculously more abundant than it is around SLU. On a side note, the town is very beautiful except for the hundreds of windmills which surround it on two sides; the people are for the most part ignorant-yet-cheerful and the crime rate is basically as low as possible.

Aside from writing, what are your interests and hobbies?

Aside from writing, I enjoy playing electric blues guitar, snowboarding, reading, ice hockey, the video game Counter-strike Source, and spending time with my girlfriend of three years. I get bored easily and am continually finding new interests.

Who are your influences?

William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Edgar Allan Poe are my main influences. As to the first two in the list, I enjoy their attempt to define poetry in their Prelude to the Lyrical Ballads and Biographia Literaria, respectively. Furthermore I am impressed by Wordsworth and Coleridge's work on the Laws of Association and what is the imagination and fancy. As to Poe, I have always been a sucker for mystical figures. He is, on the whole, an enigma in poetic history. Whether looking at his war against unfair copyright laws in the United States in the 19th century, or his mysterious death, I find myself intrigued by the man's past and poetry and how the two are almost always inseparable.

What's good about good poetry?

In my opinion, good poetry has the ability to make you think. One of the many great things about poetry is that poetic works can be viewed as condensed novels. In other words, poetry is prose chopped down to the essentials. There are not hundreds of pages for plot development and excess. In poetry the poet must address his audience to the maximum extent with a semi-minimalist approach. (This of course is not always the case as many poetic pieces endure for hundreds of pages).

What do you hope to learn in this class?

I hope to improve my understanding of rhyme, meter, and grammar in poetry. Furthermore, I hope to better equip myself to express myself in poetry without being cliché or pathetic. I want to learn how to develop my ideas into advanced, rational lines.