Complex thoughts distilled through plain diction, interactions with the natural world, and specificity of details can heighten imagery and evoke larger implications. This endeavor to make human connection through introspection, reflection and acute awareness of one’s environment is a prevalent style employed by many ancient Chinese poets. Within this seemingly simplistic approach, these masters arrived […]
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I’ve been thinking lately how certain literary influences have informed and shaped my writing. As a narrative/lyric poet interested in story and expressed feeling, the poets I keep returning to for inspiration include Richard Hugo, Stanley Plumly, James Wright, Philip Levine, William Matthews, B.H. Fairchild, Lynda Hull, Sharon Olds, and others who draw from […]
The poet Allen Ginsberg has famously said, “First thought, best thought.” The inimitable Otis Redding, in the classic “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” laments “I can’t do what ten people tell me to do.” Here, in the BFA in Creative Writing program at Goddard College, you are encouraged to consider revision as […]
Jorge Armenteros | October/November 2012 Reprinted from The Writer’s Chronicle and www.awpwriter.org EXCERPTI’ll be perfectly honest and tell you that I have no adequate answer to why I write the way that I do. Writing fiction that departs from reality in some way is not intentional for me; it’s not a precept I impose upon […]
The novelist Paul Auster has written, “As long as there’s one person to believe it, there’s no story that can’t be true.” And what compels that one reader to believe, especially if the narrative consists of characters that might be difficult to identify with? The challenge here is to create characters in a way that […]
Plainfield, Vt. ‐‐‐ Goddard College today announced the hiring of Janet Sylvester as the new director of the college’s Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Creative Writing Program. Sylvester is a Goddard alumna who has authored three books of poems. Her writings have appeared in renowned publications including The Best American Poetry, TriQuarterly, Boulevard, Harvard Review, The […]