Though the program is small, creative writing is a pretty big thing here at Oberlin. In my three years here, I feel like I’m always hearing about it-- but to be fair, I do run in creative circles (read: theater kids). Perhaps because of this, I’ve always been a little intimidated by it, and expressed my creativity in other ways. Then, last semester during course registration, I saw a course I couldn’t resist: ‘Poetry and the Body.’ I happened to be in need of one more writing credit anyway, and the course description sounded fascinating. I got one of fifteen highly coveted spots in the class and rejoiced, imagining a fall spent reading Blythe Baird poems on the swing bench outside Peters. What I forgot to consider was that a class in the creative writing department that also counts for a writing credit does in fact require some writing! Who would’ve guessed?
When I realized that we would be writing our own poetry, and workshopping it with the entire class, I almost dropped the course-- I’d never written poetry before, and the idea of writing poetry for the first time, about such personal subject matter, then sharing it with strangers? Terrifying! Still, I didn’t drop, because even prior to the first class meeting I was already enamored with our assigned readings. Getting used to writing poetry was a very arduous, yet rewarding process-- which was helped along by workshops. If you’re wondering what a workshop looks like (and I was too), let me tell you (from a total amateur’s perspective).
Workshops are nerve-wracking! They require being vulnerable and sharing a piece of yourself with people you barely know and yet also will probably have to run into all the time, because, hello, tiny campus. That’s a lot of pressure, especially so with this class, because it's on subject matter most of us have complicated relationships with. Basically, you submit a poem you’ve already written, and received feedback on/had time to revise, to a shared folder. We cover five people’s work per workshop. This means that the week before, everyone prints out all the poems submitted, annotates them, and writes a letter of feedback for them. Then in the actual class period, each poem gets 15 minutes. I’m not sure if this is universal or just how my particular course works, but we do 5 minutes for observations, 5 minutes for praise, and 5 minutes for next steps and questions. For our first workshop of the semester, our professor brought fun treats to make it less scary, and then we dove in. It was a lot less nightmare-ish than I had imagined, although I did spend most of the first one completely distracted by nerves. But we’ve continued doing them throughout the semester, and now I look forward to them every week. I get super valuable feedback and ideas, and I’m consistently floored by how talented my peers are.
I’ve really enjoyed my first endeavor into the creative writing program at Oberlin. It’s opened up a whole new interest to me, and helped me get out of my comfort zone with sharing unpolished writing. I’m not sure if another creative writing class will fit into my schedule, but either way, I’m a better writer for having taken this one.
