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Presidents Summer Fellowship, Rediscovery and Writing in the Desert Part 3, Nathan Martin
Colonel Armstrong Tree
Nate Martin '16, English Literature, is a President's Summer Fellow on a trip through the American Southwest with the goal of rewriting his connection to poetry by visiting areas where he first established that connection.
It was one of the last nights of my trip and I was in northern California, looking for a place to sleep. I googled "campgrounds" and after rejecting a bunch of RV parks that came up, I found Bullfrog Pond Campground. It seemed remote and also near, so I set the google directions to it from my phone and headed there.
I turned off I-5, onto a winding river road through small communities. This ended in a small town where I turned onto a smaller road. This road ended at a park entrance. The sign said "Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve." I was immediately ecstatic, as the coastal redwoods were the final thing I really wanted to see on this trip. I've wanted to see them since I first learned they existed, more than a decade ago.
Continue reading Presidents Summer Fellowship, Rediscovery and Writing in the Desert Part 3, Nathan Martin
President's Summer Fellowship 2015: Nathan Martin - Part 2
My gloriously lazy hammock camp on a backpacking trip in Bryce Canyon - Riggs Spring Loop Trail.
Nate Martin '16, English Literature, is a President's Summer Fellow on a trip through the American Southwest with the goal of rewriting his connection to poetry by visiting areas where he first established that connection.
I was thinking about Sylvia Plath. I was reading The Colossus, and briefly read a poem called “Mushrooms.” I didn't like it much, and I started to wonder why. Why did Plath like it enough to include it in her collection? Does anyone like it? What makes one poem better than another? Why is one good, and another bad? Is it just relative, subjective? Is it about connections? Complexity? Simplicity? My mildly negative reaction to one poem brought me to questions about aesthetics, and, as sometimes happens when questions are piled up, I came up with some answers. But first I decided to try to write a really bad poem. Here it is:
This tree is like my heart.
Continue reading President's Summer Fellowship 2015: Nathan Martin - Part 2
Youth Organizations Umbrella, McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Olivia Kilgore
Recipient of the McGill Lawrence Internship Award, Olivia Kilgore '16, is teaching cultural connections and slam poetry to classes to Middle School Youth in Evanston, Illinois.
Youth Organizations Umbrella is a youth development non-profit organization that serves youth in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago. This summer, I have the privilege of facilitating classes for an eight-week summer program to middle school students in Evanston. As a staff member of Y.O.U., I promote positive youth development. The strategy encompasses the idea that empowering youth through supporting their voices and ideas enables them to resist negative factors and be successful in all areas of their lives.
The summer program incorporates seven main elements: life skills (civic leadership & cultural connections, health & nutrition, healthy relationships & sexual health), electives (arts/drama/lit, sports & fitness, STEM), structured play & team building activities, field trips, supportive adult relationships, family engagement and mental health counseling/crisis intervention.
Presidents Summer Fellowship 2015: Nathan Martin, Rediscovery in the Desert
Part One: Water of Unknown Depth
Nate Martin '16 is a President's Summer Fellow on a trip through the American Southwest with the goal of rewriting his connection to poetry by visiting areas where he first established that connection.
I'm out here now in Green River, Utah on I-70 in the eastern side of the state. I've taken a day off from hiking and driving around and talking to people to sit down and figure out where I am.
Textbooks and the Oregon Coast: Winter Externship, Nathan Martin
Nathan Martin, junior English major, participated in a winter externship on the Oregon coast with Ruth Werner, author. Nathan is also a recent winner of this summer’s President’s Summer Fellowship, to pursue poetry writing in the desert.
I'm used to textbooks. I've been buying them now for over four years.
I'll continue buying them for another one to three years, depending on
what I do after Reed. I don't think much about where these books come
from. I've cursed when the edition I need is a hundred dollars and the
previous edition is fifty cents. I've cursed louder after finding out
I could've used the older edition after buying the new one. I've also
been fond of textbooks. I had a history text at my community college
that surprised me with the effectiveness of its question and answer
format. I do love books, but that love has never extended to textbooks. It still doesn't, but now I know a good deal more about where they come from.
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5 Writers Offer Advice on How to Make Writing Your Career
You take a deep drag on your cigarette and another swig of coffee. It’s long gone cold, but you can’t get up to make another cup because you don’t want to disrupt your flow. You have no idea what time it is and you don’t care. All you know is that you’ve got to keep going until the words don’t come out anymore or your eyes refuse to stay open.
You watch the characters move and interact in the movie that’s playing inside your head. Your job is simple and complicated at the same time—you have to make sure that their stories are told, that their messy, human lives are translated into neat black rows of text on the page.
If you dream about being a writer, you might imagine that this is what your life would look like. And for some writers, it does. But there’s much more variety to working as a writer than you might imagine.
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The Reed College Peer-Reviewed Journal, Ch 2
The objective of my proposed publication has undergone a subtle shift over the last two months. I had initially envisioned either a formal review that surveyed a year’s work at Reed, or a thematic publication, composed of art, essays, and, fiction. Since then, my objective has narrowed.
Continue reading The Reed College Peer-Reviewed Journal, Ch 2
The Reed College Peer-Reviewed Journal, Ch 2
The objective of my proposed publication has undergone a subtle shift over the last two months. I had initially envisioned either a formal review that surveyed a year’s work at Reed, or a thematic publication, composed of art, essays, and, fiction. Since then, my objective has narrowed.
Continue reading The Reed College Peer-Reviewed Journal, Ch 2