Senior Portfolio Workshop 2017

What are some of the themes of this story? What are some examples of where in the story/ how he explores those themes? What effect is produced by the narrator’s way of writing (Ex. Leaving out “the” and “a”)? What are some of the other quirks of his writing and what is the effect they have? […]

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Debra Nystrom’s poem “A Knock” utilizes conversation within the poem to create a sense of comfort in a time of disarray. The poem begins from the speaker with a few added italicized lines working in conjunction with the rest of the poem as a second voice. In the poem, Nystrom has portrayed the idea of disarray […]

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The sense of place is very important in this one-stanza poem in that it seems to be more of the center theme than the two ‘characters.’ Nystrom uses a third person limited when talking about Will and Ellie but mostly talks about the latter. Like stated in the first sentence, the two humans are not […]

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Nystrom’s poetry uses run-on sentences to create a kind of breathlessness permeating the voice of the poem. At the same time there is something sustained and controlled about the rhythm in her poetry, particularly “pronghorn.” The repeated “A, E, U” and “B” sounds in the first two stanzas create a rhythm almost like a rap, […]

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Debra Nystrom’s poetry, in repeated cases in the reading assigned, features a strong narrative element that intertwines itself with an image. “The Door” is an especially interesting example of this because the poem introduces two temporally separate, though situationally related, narratives that culminate with a single recognizable image. In describing two very personal scenes in a […]

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The Paris Review published an interesting interview with Mary Ruefle. You can read it here. Among the comments she makes is this: I don’t have any ideas when I write a poem, and the poems don’t really have an intent—should I say such a thing? It would take me sixty pages to explain what I mean […]

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In Mary Ruefle’s poetry collection Trances of the Blast, it has been seen from the first line, of her first poem, “Everything that ever happened to me/ happened to somebody else first,” that her work is an exploration of the self, but more specifically writing about those moments that everyone has experienced in some way or another. For an […]

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In this short essay, Hilton Als talks about the transformation of Michael Jackson from the start of his career to his end. Als comments about sexuality and identity through the life of Michael Jackson, two topics that are part of Jackson’s identity throughout his life. In this case, he presents Jackson as a metaphor for […]

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Hilton Als starts this piece in the way of telling a third person story, “One night in the spring of 1993”. The piece takes a very narrative structure with Als telling the story as an onlooker with first hand knowledge of Talley and the moments and circumstances he depicts. He claims to understand everything about […]

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Als describes Jackson as a calcified figure towards the end of his career. Never again to become more than what shaped him. Als classifies Michael as white girl because of the sexuality he alluded to in his earlier work. Als cites the fact Michael would “date” young starlets and trail around singers such as Dianna […]

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Hilton Als’ use of form in “Michael” is intriguing in the way that it allows for the form of the essay to enact its content. Als numbers his sections in this essay, which is not exactly an original or uncommon form for an essay in general, but is the first (and only) time the device […]

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Hilton Als dives right in with a description of a scene from O’Connor’s novel The Violent Bear it Away followed by an excerpt of the scene. He gives readers his perception then allows them to observe the scene for themselves. This is the format which the rest of the piece employs as well, drawing upon evidence (letters, excerpts from […]

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This essay can be read as a ‘biography’ and half an analysis of some portions of Flannery O’Connor’s of her life and of her work. In the essay, Hilton Als perceives O’Connor as an intelligent, sophisticated, fickle, but ultimately complex woman who writes works relying on her religious viewpoint, the place in which she lives […]

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In Hilton Als’ “This Lonesome Place,” he utilizes the life of another author, Flannery O’Connor, to point out the struggles of being a minority, looking specifically at the marginalization of characters in the literature of the American South. He expresses the struggles of being a black man in America in his previous essays; however, in this […]

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O’Connor’s was not the shifty, reactive, and merely local variety that passes for irony today: sitcom irony, skinny-jeans irony. It was vertical and biblical: the irony by which the mighty are lowered, the humble exalted, and the savior dies on a cross. And she would shortly be required to submit to it herself, in full. […]

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Hilton Als continues to use the life stories of others to describe greater social points in “This Lonesome Place,” as he does throughout the entire text of White Girls. In “This Lonesome Place,” Als uses both excerpts from the fiction of Flannery O’Connor as well as quotes from her actually documented interactions with others. In doing […]

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Discussion questions: How does Hilton Als structure the narrative? in what ways is this effective in providing a picture of O’Conner and her work? What techniques does Hilton Als use to keep the reader engaged? What image of O’Conner as a writer and person do we come out of reading this with? Why? Do we have […]

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