Poetry Sample: Curved Silhouette

I wrote this poem for creative writing class. I had to follow many specifics: for instance, include a song fragment, a painting, and a random quotation.

“Curved Silhouette”
After “Figured Dark” by Greg Rappleye

I'm walking in the patio,
meandering through roses and pansies,
my feet scuffing the pebbles
sounding like static a girl wishing
in a July night.
My dreams are the elusive dreams.
My song is "Rosie,"
as Jason Alexander holds his sweetheart’s hand
and exclaims, in that exultant voice,
"There’s one rose sweeter than any that grows."
I think of Waterhouse's The Soul of a Rose--
the browns in it, the pale pinks
and sea-foam green,
the roses crawling the wall
and the woman inhaling their fantasies.
The curling roses must transport her
to places swirling with unlikely dreams.
I stand before the trellis,
bees pushing into my yellow roses.
I admit to none: where the walls and the streets disappear,
when the roses root me to the spot--
Smooth petals, thorns grasping the wood.
I recall that Robert Browning greatly loved Elizabeth.
And Robert's pain—I wonder-- did it still throb twenty-eight years
after her early death?
Red, red roses shouldn't wither.
I am solitary on the patio,
feeling, without anyone else, the roses.
I am entranced by them.
I could stand watching the petals and count each one fall.

News Article

I wrote this story based on a presentation that Ed Semmler, a journalist at the South Bend Tribune, gave to my jounalism class. I had to write a news article based on his presentation in proper journalism format.

SOUTH BEND—Journalist and editor Ed Semmler from the South Bend Tribune spoke on Monday morning to a journalism class at IU South Bend. He discussed the importance of the internet in modern newspaper work. Semmler described challenges facing journalists who must adapt to the internet’s power.

Alert and engaging, the soft-spoken Semmler displayed enthusiasm for journalism. He expressed concern over the problems of adapting to the internet but as if they were interesting riddles. “It makes it stressful, but more fascinating than ever. It’s like a puzzle, trying to figure how things work.” He said that the newspaper tries different approaches with mixed success. With a twinkle in his eye, Semmler says, “Sometimes we’re just slapping our hands on water.”

Semmler said that the internet is viewed as a place where information is free, yet maintaining a website for a newspaper requires money. He explains that although the internet is enormously important to the newspaper industry, it is hard to gain revenue from. Internet users expect web content to be free. “The genie has been let out of the bottle, so now the question is, how do we get the genie back in the bottle?”

He outlined different newspapers’ tactics. “A lot newspapers do different things. Some do paywalls. The basic stuff is free, but if it’s an insider story, like the latest on recruiting, you have to do the paywall.” A paywall forces viewers to pay some money to either subscribe to the website or gain access to that particular story.

Although internet users tend to put electronic media first, according to Semmler, they are accustomed to getting their information for free. Then readers will try to avoid paywalls, usually by going to another website. One possibility, according to Semmler, is that readers with iPads and iPhones may be willing to pay to get customized newsfeeds on their devices.

Speed is crucial to internet news releases. Semmler says that “the internet is now first priority, with news going up 24/7 on the internet, Facebook, Twitter, different internet platforms all the time.” One shared aspect by the internet and traditional newspapers is the importance of being the first to break news. “You don’t get special points on Google for being the most correct. You get the points for being there first and getting the most hits.”

The drive to be the first to report has some downfalls according to Semmler. As soon as a news story is written up, it is posted on the Web. He says, “At the speed that we’re moving, we’re skipping steps we used to take.” He went so far as to describe reporters with iPhones as being “almost self-contained.”

Because he spends most of his time in the building, Semmler says he does not have an iPhone. He does, however, want field reporters to have one. “I want the prime reporter, the guy who’s out covering the fire, the sports reporter out on the field, I want him to have that stuff. It seems silly that a reporter should have my old phone.” Semmler says that he has to trust that reporters who must post quickly to the internet will not cause a lawsuit.

As a result of the rise of the internet, newspaper sizes, according to Semmler, have shrunk at least 10 pages. When editors try to adjust the papers’ content, sometimes they upset readers. Semmler’s particular pet peeve is the comics. “We pay a fortune for the comics. Some of them are not even funny anymore; they are just sad. The 85 year old man wants to kick my butt if we try to change anything. The comics are like their pacifier, their grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.” Semmler says that a lot of new comics are fresh and funny, but readers reject them in favor of old-school comics. “If we try to change anything, we get creamed.”

It is balancing these changes along with the aspects of traditional journalism that keep Semmler engaged and enthused. “The fun is still being out in the field and being the first person to report something. Back in the day we would run to the phone to dictate to the boss. Now you do it on your iPhone.”

Poetry Sample: Through the Window

Through the Window

The neighbor’s house squats
under a magnolia tree. In May the tree blooms
then drops rosy bits of satin on the roof,
creating white polka dots on the shingles.

The porch twists all around.
There Joel learned to rollerblade,
holding the railing,
round and round.
I watched him take a lot of bruises,
tough kid.
So did the porch.
Now the gouged wood bears vertical stripes.
One board winces under weight.

Some landmarks are oversized. The driveway, perpetually graffettied with chalk,
is twice as long as most.
The triple oak tree —I’ve never seen larger—spills so many acorns
that walking on them is like sliding on ball-bearings.
Their mailbox is so large that once a prankster
squeezed two middlin’ pumpkins into it.

In the backyard the two boys and Molly make a racket,
sometimes as Indians. But what Indians!
Hair spiked with water, finger-painted faces, cardboard tomahawks.
They remind me of my brothers and our adventures
long ago.

Everyone hates the house’s color: muddy purple.
About once a year someone suggests changing the siding.
Nothing comes of it.
Teenage Carl, who won a prize for carving those pumpkins,
invited me in once. The wallpaper inside is uglier than the siding.
I was only in that once.

Kids move too fast for old bones and keep parents busy,
busier than I all alone.
Collecting clues from across the street mystifies
yet rewards. They are my soap opera,
each episode new growth and adventures.

I saw when Molly fell from the magnolia tree
cracked a wrist, hardly cried.
Joel didn’t know I was watching the first time
he rollerbladed on the sidewalk arms churning, leaning forward.
I missed Carl the first autumn that he couldn’t slide on the acorns.
College had claimed him.
I saw Joel show his mother his new baby.
I’ll watch too when that baby learns to walk by holding on to the porch railings.

Poetry Sample: Inherited Wisdom

I wrote this fictional free verse poem for a class.

Inherited Wisdom

I've never seen my dad change the car's oil.
No one showed my dad,
so he never dared try it; his car was too
expensive for experiments.

I remember when Dad tried to install
a doorknob. He carefully,
carefully, read the directions,
studied the diagrams, and called his tools the wrong names.

"Grandpa died before I could be taught
guy stuff," he'd tell me when I would teach him
with my knowledge gleaned from Boy Scouts.

I thought my dad should know everything.
After all, he could shoot from the hip, jabber baseball,
do wheelies on a bike, smack a basketball swoosh into the hoop.

We made quite the pair.
I liked to slice wildly
with saws while Dad was cautious, using manuals
to guide him between pinched fingers.

A little knowledge made me dangerous and sloppy
while a lot of inexperience
made Dad careful and precise.

"You know, Grandpa built the shed out back," he'd say
when we visited Grandma. I nodded, sneaking peeks
at the toolbox collecting bumps of rust.

Boy Scouts kept me out of his dilemma, but
created another. I did not want Dad
to help at the Klondike Derby, when we built
our own sleds to race. The other guys might hear him call pliers "wrenches."
It'd be okay except they'd never seen him shoot from the hip.

I remember when Dad struggled
to change the tire on the way to the Little 500.
Long past lunchtime and no restaurant in sight,
windshield wipers helpless against a spring
storm's rampage while poor Dad flopped in the eddy
of icy water under the car.
I worried that the car would collapse on him.
He managed yet never gained familiarity with a jack

Dad earned independence, but no polish.
I'm now grown, dexterous with Dad's old enemy,
and can jabber baseball. My science nut son
doesn't like hammers or baseball. I'm clueless
about his passion. I guess tools are useful
but there is more to life than being
a handyman.

Article for Journalism Class

I wrote the following article for journalism class. I interviewed an artist in South Bend and wrote the article based on my interview.

SOUTH BEND—How many people can say they have a mural of the Italian countryside in their kitchen that they made themselves? Yet Gloria Seitz, an artist and art teacher for over 30 years, can claim just that.

Seitz says that one of the benefits of taking art classes and being creative is that everyday details of one’s life become more interesting. Seitz says that students “can appreciate art and bring it into their home—how to decorate the home, what to bring in, whether to buy or make cards. If you have art, you bring more beauty into the home, and you have a stronger home life and enjoy life more.”

Her artistic talent was first noticed by her kindergarten teacher when she drew George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for Presidents’ Day. Later teachers continued to encourage her. A fourth grade teacher especially made art fascinating for Seitz. “My teacher tied art, creativity, and education together. She encouraged us to illustrate and have creativity. You can use art in learning, like when you’re studying the planets. You can illustrate the plants and figure out how to write about them to make them interesting.”

Her teacher went on to show Seitz perspective, which she continues to find fascinating today. The teacher set up a still life in the center of the room. The students sat in a circle around it and had to draw it from their perspective. Seitz was amazed by the differences in interpretation.

Seitz says that her art was also encouraged in junior high. “My peers would go, ‘Wow, how do you do that?’” Seitz remembers with a laugh, “When you’re in junior high and your peers say you’re good, it really makes an impression!”

Seitz believes that people are meant to be creative and that art does make a difference in the world. “When I decided to teach art, I wanted to live for God’s glory. At first I was not sure that I was going to make as much of a difference as a missionary or someone like that. But then it was revealed to me that God is the creator, and when we create, we fulfill part of us that God wants us to develop. Creative people are happier and more in touch with their Creator.”

Her early teaching experience was at various colleges and schools. One of her first teaching experiences was in college, where she mainly taught photography and graphic design. Seitz says it felt intimidating to instruct students only a few years younger than she. Seitz remembers, “Then my boss said, ‘You know everything they want to learn, and that’s how you qualify.’ I thought, ‘Well, if you put it that way, I am.’”

Seitz went on to teach in grade school settings. It was there that she developed her art program. After her move to South Bend in 1997, Seitz heard that there was a need in the home school community for an art teacher. She has taught in this setting ever since. Currently she is conducting 11 classes three times a week. These classes are split into three groups: ages six through 10, 10-13, and grades seven through adult.

Seitz says there are advantages to teaching home school students. Seitz says, “I thought I could be my own boss and have more freedom with hours. A big problem with public school is funding art supplies. When I teach on my own, I decide what to buy. I don’t have to think, ‘Oh no, I can’t get that, it’s too expensive’ or the school can’t afford it. I could budget into program and have fun and get whatever.”

She teaches three art class sessions in the school year. Each session runs for seven weeks. At the end of each session, all the classes’ art is displayed in the gym of Trinity Free Evangelical Church in Niles. Family and friends gather to admire the students’ work.

Seitz says that one of her favorite parts of teaching is seeing students become more confident in their ability. “I love seeing someone who thinks they can’t do art have a light bulb go on. A lot of students come into class thinking they have no ability. I love developing creativity to build into their lives and futures. I see it as a real privilege for generations after to have creativity and art."