Tag: poetry

My National Poetry Month: From Miami to St. Augustine

Posted on by rosysophia

April was a tough one for me. On my other website, The Backwords Writer, you’ll find posts about trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic illness I’ve had for most of my life. In late March, a nerve pain flare-up began, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to participate in National Poetry Month. Fortunately, though, I managed to take part in the events, and everything went well.

April 15 was my first time participating in a poetry panel. The panel took place at St. Augustine Poet Fest. It was a wonderful opportunity.

On  April 22 I joined fellow FIU Gulf Stream literary magazine editors at Books & Books in Coral Gables for a “Meet a Poet” event. I am honored to have served as poetry editor for Gulf Stream for the past year. This event was part of O, Miami’s poetry month events. Of course, I brought my favorite typewriter, a Remington Portable.

O, Miami “Meet a Poet” with Gulf Stream magazine in Coral Gables.

Additionally, for National Library Week at the end of the month, I presented on the history of North Palm Beach Library as part of an event for Overdue in Paradise: The Library History of Palm Beach County, an anthology I contributed to that was published in 2017.

Presenting on the history of North Palm Beach Library. Photo courtesy Morris Foster.


And finally, to top off a fabulous National Poetry Month, I was given the FIU Academy of American Poets Award at a Writers on the Bay event on campus.

With my professors at Writers on the Bay, Miami, Fla.

I had a hard time getting through the pain this month, but I am ever so grateful for these opportunities to meet other writers, experience the world, and make new friends.

 

 

Night School Sonnet

Night School Sonnet

Posted on by rosysophia

My latest automotive poem, “Night School Sonnet,” has been published in Issue #5 of Limp Wrist. Click here to read it. I’m currently working on a chapbook of automotive poems (something I never would’ve imagined possible a few years ago).

Here’s a picture of me in 2011 when I attended Lincoln Tech for my associate degree in automotive technology.

The Objective Correlative: There’s a Story in Every Item

Posted on by rosysophia

The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.

— T.S. Eliot

January 2020 Writers in Paradise poetry workshop with poet Greg Pardlo.

I first learned the term “objective correlative” while studying with Ann Hood, author of The Obituary Writer and The Book That Matters Most. It was 2014, my first year attending the Writers in Paradise conference at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida.

T.S. Eliot coined the term “objective correlative,” writing that instead of making his audience “feel” emotions in Hamlet, Shakespeare only described them. He felt Hamlet’s emotions overwhelmed any attempt to “express them through an objective correlative.”

Since first learning that term, I’ve been to Writers in Paradise on several other occasions, and it led me to where I am now: a student in the MFA in Creative Writing program at Florida International University.

The objective correlative is the theme of this website, an endeavor I came up with while studying hybrid forms and lyric essay with Professor Julie Marie Wade at FIU. Through hybrid theory, I began to see the importance of the objective correlative everywhere. I began to see how the objective correlative naturally expressed itself in my work, as long as I was on the right track.

The objective correlative became a key, sometimes a literal key: In lyric essay class, I wrote a lyric essay on the lyric essay called “The Stain on the Key,” in which the key itself is both literal and metaphorical.

At the end of the semester in hybrid theory class, each student had to do a presentation. Mine was full of objective correlatives. I presented on This Victorian Life by Sarah A. Chrisman, which I saw as a hybrid memoir in the way it presented not only a lived experience, but a fascinating history lesson. I brought props with me to class: My grandmother’s baby shoe. A poem written by my great-grandmother about my grandmother’s baby shoe. A Victorian-era chatelaine. Photographs. And even a naughty note written in the late 1800s.

Each of these objects had the potential to carry emotions. My grandmother as a little baby. Her first words, her first step. Her long life, which ended at age 96 in April 2021.

I began to see the objective correlative everywhere: Not just in my own life, in my house where I keep many vintage items, but in all the flea markets and thrift stores I frequent. Each item had a story once. Each item, for sale on some shelf or table, had been divorced from its story. Where had it come from? What was the story of its original owner? What journey led the item to this place?

Through this website, I hope to honor both life and memory.

I hope you’ll join me on this interactive exploration of the objective correlative. I hope you’ll see how the objective correlative might express itself in your own life, and in your writing.