Fare Thee Well

Today marks the end of the Cambridge Prep. Minor students had their final creative writing class yesterday, while Major students had their final class earlier this morning. We spent both sessions snacking on traditional English sweets (Jammy Dodgers, Bakewell Tarts, Hobnobs, Fox's Biscuits, and of course Ribena!) and participating in a series of writing games. This evening, faculty, students, and admin staff will gather together for a final banquet, awards ceremony, and dance. 

I couldn't be happier with the group of students who signed up to take Creative Writing. Each and every one of you has contributed to the course and produced an exceptional array of written work. 

Thank you, and safe travels!

Photo credit: peterhouse.jcr.co.uk

Quote of the Day - Kafka

“Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” 

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

Photo credit: Corbis

Quote of the Day - Dickinson

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” 

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Photo credit: ©Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

Poetry Reading

Yesterday evening our students participated in the Cambridge Prep showcase. We decided to share our work with the program in the form of a poetry (and prose!) reading. Participation was voluntary, and I was very pleased to see the following students take part:

Major course:

Hailey, Constance, Emily, Lili, Zahra, Zeynap, and Kimberly

Minor course:

Muriel, Kathleen, Ariana, Carl, Bernard, Emmy, Madeleine, Hannah, and Paree.

The rest of the class came out in full force to support their fellow students!

Having the courage to share your work in public is no small feat. I was profoundly impressed by each performance. The group received a standing ovation, and many students approached me afterwards to tell me how much they'd enjoyed it.

Final Projects

For our final projects, members of the Major course were tasked with completing a five-page piece (in poetry or prose) based on one of the writing exercises that we've covered in class. The Minor class is a bit different (no homework!), so students in this group were given two classroom periods to produce a polished piece of writing.

Minor students submitted their work at the end of class on Monday, July 30th, while Major students dedicated the entire class period on Monday to reading their work aloud. I have received (and listened to!) the most wonderful variety of written work! Students submitted mysteries, love poems, nonsense fables, political poetry, science fiction, rap lyrics, observational pieces, and much, much more!

I asked each student to paraphrase their final project in the form of a haiku...

One about liars,
The other about the rich.
Almost the same poem.

- Muriel (Minor course)

Wimbledon was a
spectacular and very
fun, action-packed day.

- Kayla (Major course)


Childish and plain
But sadder than most kid books
Because all’s not well.

- Ali (Major course)

An old man warned me
To avoid greed and desire,
We five sailed to death.

- Winter (Major course)

London Visit

On Thursday, July 18th, Cam Prep students visited London with their Major course. In order to experience the city as creative writers, our class traced the footsteps of the celebrated Bloomsbury group. We've been reading Virginia Woolf and experimenting with stream of consciousness prose in class, so the British Library, British Museum, and Russell Square seemed like the perfect destinations!
We marvelled at the BL's George III Collection of old books and manuscripts (we made lists of what might lurk beneath their covers), and visited their current exhibit Propaganda: Power and Persuasion.

We had lovely weather for our walk through Russell Square towards the Museum. Once inside, students were free to examine Roman antiquities, Victorian jewelry, medieval armour, and anything else that took their fancy! We ended the day with free time in Covent Garden.

The British Museum

Kendra's Poem

My name is time
I cannot find my way to rhyme
Not in harmony, not in motion
I am the universe’s undulating ocean
I am the sky’s sprouting fire
I am the children’s eyes, wide and dire
I am the knock on your door late at night
I am the window’s warm and grating light
I will hiss at you in the pulsing dark
I will whisper soft feathers and you will hark
I will drift my cape down marble stairs
I will ask your world, who dares? Who dares?
I am the wind blowing your soft chestnut hair
I am your music, your heart, your formidable care
I sing to you in the chilly water
I am humanity’s rebellious daughter.

Quote of the Day - Cather

“Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.” 

Willa Cather (1873-1947)













Photo credit: blogs.telegraph.co.uk

Bric-a-Brac

Yesterday, our Major class revisited the Fitzwilliam Museum. During our first visit, students wrote prose pieces inspired by paintings in the portrait gallery. This time, we focused our attention on rooms filled with dainty porcelain figurines, teapots, vases, and plates. Inspired by a passage in L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz (1907), in which characters are transformed into a series of ornaments, students were encouraged to select (and write about) objects that represented elements of their personality. We regrouped after an hour to share our objects (and our stories!). 

I sit, motionless and inanimate, behind a sheet of glass alongside other porcelain dishes and objects. There is a reason why we are all here, here behind this sheet of glass; stuck in a Museum. We, the motionless and inanimate, represent time periods, histories, family lineage, where we come from; we symbolize emotions, fears, and hopes. These concepts remain the synonymous bridge between the porcelain and the people. We are the products of centuries of family history.

I am a fairly small Ovoid jar of soft-paste porcelain and a tin-glaze. Soft for my features and complexion, with a tin-glaze for my lack of sensitivity. I have a lid that lets no one get to me, on which a few flowers are set; I will reside to happiness even in the hardest of times. I am enameled in Kakiemon, a Japanese porcelain style for my Grandmother Sanae Hagino. I am a novelty piece of Caltagirone potters of Sicily for my Grandfather Salvatore Spera. I have a pewter handle from the German Knöller period for my great grandfather August Biche. I have a white tin-glaze with small Scottish stones at my base from William Littler’s craft, for my great grandmother Winchester Willoughby. I am detailed with butterflies, peonies, chrysanthemums and other flowers with other paths and verandas, that wind open ended for me.  

We are all pieces of porcelain with different histories and background.   - Winter

Clock - The Rape of Europa; French 1770

 

If I were an object, I’d never be white—not black nor gray nor blue
From my metallic surface would sprout a million colors, a million birds that flew
And through my hands, my woven little hands, comes those soft and aching gusts
Those gusts of that haunting and chilling wind, we all know, we all know, and thus
I’ll sing and dance and tell my way through stories, you’re stories, as well as theirs
Stories of laughter, tears and sorrow, of wars, of playtime, of those heartfelt dares
I’ll run and I’ll tick, the tick, tick, tick, I’ll bellow that song with all my might
And sing I may and cry my way through your, yes your, songs of flight
For I am a clock: the most intricate clock, with my fingers knotted together
I’ll remain silent, screaming, deafening behind glass, my whispers soft as a feather
While I sit, placidly, and you’ll ache that dull ache, and I remain total
I am your reminder, your heart, your soul, my pain: I am forever and you are mortal.

- Kendra

Hannah's Poetry

Below are two poems written by Hannah, a member of our Minor course.


Society

I can walk,
I can talk,
I can reach,
And I can think.
But can I walk the walk,
Or talk the talk,
Can I reach my goals,
And think?

Turn around

You can run away,
And assume that everything will be okay,
Or have a sip of  bubble gum tea,
And assume that it would taste okay.

You can write a poem,
And assume that it will explain how you feel,
Or,
You can turn around,
And turn to,
Where you know that everything will be okay.

Drop the tea,
Scratch out the poem,
And look at the world and what you ran past,
And never saw.

Quote of the Day - Forster

"How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"

E. M. Forster (1879-1970)

Photo credit: www.famousauthors.org

Grantchester

Today, members of our Major course joined forces with English Lit students for a walk to Grantchester. The weather was perfect for our outing - slightly (mercifully?) cooler than earlier in the week, but with enough sunshine to keep our spirits up! We had a proper English tea at Grantchester's celebrated Orchard Tea Gardens, former stomping ground of Virginia Woolf, Rupert Brooke, and E.M. Forster. Students loaded their trays with miniature tea pots, jugs of milk, enormous scones, clotted cream, honey, and a seemingly infinite variety of jams. 

On our walk back, we paused for a reading of Rupert Brooke's famous "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester" (1912):

Ah God! to see the branches stir
Across the moon at Grantchester!
To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten
Unforgettable, unforgotten
River-smell, and hear the breeze
Sobbing in the little trees.
Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand
Still guardians of that holy land?
The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,
The yet unacademic stream?
Is dawn a secret shy and cold
Anadyomene, silver-gold?
And sunset still a golden sea
From Haslingfield to Madingley?
And after, ere the night is born,
Do hares come out about the corn?
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown, above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?

Quote of the Day - De Vries

“I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.” 

Peter De Vries (1910-1993)













Photo credit: wikipedia.org

Lincoln Cathedral

Winter's piece was inspired by our program-wide trip to Lincoln on July 12th.

Saint Hugh of Lincoln and His Swan

I am alone and abandoned in this mute, forsaken place. Lonesome and lost, I walk past pillars (rather piles) of cold, heaps of stone. Light dimly streams through the holes in the giant, iron doors—I assume it will suffice. I kneel, quite dubious, in front of his shrine of gold and hope and wish and pray for matters. At once, I hear heavenly hymns that flutter with the dancing colors, coalescing to form the clandestine choir that entrances me with every tune and twinkle. For a moment I am not on Earth, I am consoled and consumed by the fanciful and fantastic that one cannot reach in reality. Music rings from each stone, like a magical music box.  As it rises from the golden pipes of the organ with the angelic song of the cherubs, my wounds are mended. For a moment, I feel a foreign
feel— it’s indescribable— as if a living and loving spirit dances within me. At once, I see him. The one who gave me such feeling. He is found, hidden yet coveted, in miraculous treasures that were once dull and opaque to my eyes. Each stained glass glows like a box of jewels—sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and pearls; a myriad of colors is reflected as if gem necklaces were scattered and strewn across a marble floor. He stands eternally still, adorned in a diaphanous diamond robe. His swan lies dutifully beside him, forever his protector and companion, whose coat resembles crystal orbs than white feathers and his beak of lambent amber than stiff yellow. 

At last, I finally understand. I could limp across the old cobblestones, the cracks with withering weeds, and he will give me the chance to stand. I could stagger through darkness with lampposts that dimly glow, and he will give me the light to see. I could miss the sounds of the people, the winds that whisper around me, and he will give me all to hear.

Cathedral Poem

As entering this magical location
I realize that we haven't changed in nature
Looking around, there are people, not only from one nation
Admiring the beauty of this cathedral like a shocked creature
'This is a beauty, a work of art'
They state with a sense of respect
Appreciating the early ages that were the start
For a way for people to connect
Sitting on a wooden bench
That had been with us for a while
You can see that humanity was through a stretch
That determined our current style.
In this place of worship and love
Time has stopped and waited with patience
For people to fit in it like a glove
And served for the, without impatience
In companies of others they come
To admire the colored light from high
That was created with many hands, not one
So they can get closer to the heavens in the sky
As you look up you can observe
How hands created such wonders, such art
It can calm you, the very last one of your nerves
Families come from all around
To teach their young
Without making a sound
To breath all the knowledge into their lungs.
The floors, tinted black and white,
Have shown many the ways
Of what's wrong and what's right
And hope that the sense stays.
As can be seen, people come
And people go hoping
And wishing to become
Someone that they see while dreaming.

The Cambridge Man

A poem by Winter, a member of our Major course!

The Cambridge Man
Surrounded by acres of land
He sits in the shade 
Of a tree with a book in hand
To drift, dream, and fade. 
By day he lives in ease:
He smiles at the spangle sun
And breathes in the breeze
And whistles with the birds, as one.
By night he sleeps in peace:
He dozes off at the stream’s sound
And trances in the rain’s lull ne’er cease
And dreams with the floating cloud.
He carries on life, content
Yet unknown and unseen—
For there are many, complacent
Cambridge men.

Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge

This Tuesday morning members of our Major course became self-appointed poet laureates! The entire class joined forces to write a commemorative poem about the latest royal baby.

Pull the ropes, raise the flag of the U.K.,

The royal baby was born yesterday.

The bells ring out, and confetti was thrown,

Because Kate's belly will no longer grow.

So long overdue was the little queen

For a fortnight she refused to leave Kate.

Yet when it was born, a girl was not seen,

Finally! The little king was so late!

A country that erupts in endless joy -

Alas, to their dismay, you are a boy.

They dreamt of a girl, sweet as a flower,

But it is you who shall rise to power.

Everyone wanted a girl to be born

So tradition could be broken for all.

Now many people are sad and forlorn -

In a while the patriarchy will fall.

One of the last monarchies on earth

Will be ruled by men! I think it is time to

Change the gender roles, as this baby's birth

Has so delayed women's power breakthrough.

Yesterday was a day of British joy,

For the news of the royal baby came.

Kate gave birth to an eight pounds, six ounce boy,

But now the world is awaiting his name...

Each stanza was written in groups: Aniel and Kimberly; Jiji and Constance; Kendra, Lili, and Hailey; Zeynap and Kayla; Winter and Emily; Zarah and Ali.

Photo credit: mirror.co.uk

Cam Prep Symposium and Field Day

Wednesday was a busy day at the Cam Prep! Students spent the morning listening to members of the faculty present their research - I spoke on Lewis Carroll's authorial persona, while other members of my panel discussed Islam and Shakespeare. During the afternoon we broke up into Major class groups and competed against one another in a light-hearted field day! Students played soccer, field hockey, rounders, frisbee, and even competed in an obstacle course! Below are Kathleen's haikus on both the morning and afternoon activities. Full disclosure: Kathleen is a member of our Minor course, and roundly defeated the Major creative writers in a game of hockey!

Lessons Learned from the Symposium

An average Briton

Is on camera three hundred

Moments in one day. 

Field day

The freezing water,

Shot from the water guns, helped

Shield us from the heat.

Emmy, also a member of our Minor course, came up with the following:

Lessons Learned from the Symposium

People almost dead,
I wonder, should I save them?
Medical science.


Field Day

Our teacher once said,
Win the battle not the war,
So we didn't win.

Not-so-Minor Poems

A selection of poems from Summer and Ariana, members of our Minor course!

Farewell to Childhood's Garden

To kiss the hand of childhood,

That fairest mother's name,

Embrace her as her children should,

Farewell is not for shame.

But to live among her flowers so,

And drink dry her golden breast,

It shall disrupt the milk in flow,

Awaken blossoms from their rest.

No I say to the lingering birds,

For innocence that's peeled away,

Those petals fly off into words,

Singing through the wind to stay.

But sail on open wings my child,

And dreams shall follow while the wind is mild.

- Summer

Premonitions

The premonitions are whispering again,

Torrently tugging at my ears.

My throat revives a strangled laughter,

Growing steady in my terror.

People search in nervous glances,

Trying to see what they cannot hear.

But all they see is an old woman laughing,

Chuckling on through silent tears.

A child's eyes meet mine in stride.

He hums a tune with a clutch on his bear.

And the Premonitions are singing with him,

Ripening fresh and dangerous fears.

And while I laugh and wish to cry,

And dream to die if fate proved fair,

The Premonitions ring ironic;

For that child shall die while I remain,

Torn from death as it draws near.

- Summer

In Your Hands

What is to be given away if this were to end?

Would this flower wilt if I were to look away from your eyes?

Would all the tears I shed for it have meant nothing?

That beautiful flower that blossomed when I first met you, will it start to die when our hands break away?

Why does the heart want the impossible?

From the beginning of this story was this flower given a dreadful future?

I gave this flower everything I had,

Yet it doesn't seem to grow anymore.

Has this flower's life come to an end,

or will you keep fighting to keep it alive?

- Ariana

What is Love?

Love is bittersweet

It only occurs to people struck by cupid's arrow

Love is vicious

It consumes the heart in an everlasting lie

Love is darkness

It devours you up into its void of grey clouds

Love is a sharp knife

It stabs through the frail heart and produces a throbbing feeling

Love is a rabbit hole

Once you fall in you can never get out

What is love?

Love is the most genuine yet most confusing emotion a human shall ever come to feel.

- Ariana

Stream of Consciousness

Last week, in anticipation of our Bloomsbury-themed London trip, students tried writing in the style of Virginia Woolf. We reviewed passages from Mrs Dalloway (1925) and A Room of One's Own (1929) before experimenting with our own stream-of-consciousness prose. Below, a passage from Zahra in our Major course:

Oh, a small butterfly is flying towards my direction. Yellow is the color of its wings and so is the color of the dying grass that lies all over the ground of this park. But not only the butterfly and dead grass are yellow, so is the sun’s light that seems to shower everything within the Earth playing a role as a source of warmth, light and joy to this park. I look at the trees, and if only they have faces. If only they have faces. I think of their faces looking up joyfully towards the sun; sweetly smiling, eyes closed, and embracing the sun and feeding themselves with it. Then I look down to realize that I was embracing the shadow of a tree that has become a somewhat shelter for my friends and I to think deep and write. I wonder how things are back at home – is the weather as satisfying and charming as it is here? Is my bedroom as neat and tidy as I expect it to be? How is my family doing? What about my friends, how are they at school? Do they even miss me? Ha, School.  That word strikes to me hard. After a three-week summer break, today is supposed to be my first day of school! And yet I’m here at Cambridge University until the month of August. Imagining myself going back to school after an absence of one month is rather irritating; the works – homework – new classmates, new schedules, new teachers.

Ugh.

But don’t think forlorn now.

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

Wait. I have started school! There’s Ali, Kayla, Constance, Zeynep, Aniel, Kimberly, Emily, Kendra, Hayley, Gigi, Lili, and Winter – my new classmates! These people, I may have not known them for more than two weeks, but funny how we bond so quickly. Well, it may not be the same, but I think I love it here. Getting to know all these people from all around the world, learning from the best of the best, independency, new friends, I can just go on and on about this huge program.

Well… Now and then I feel so small. This huge program can feel so overwhelming, that now and then I feel like that small butterfly that flew towards my direction.

- Zahra (Major course)

Photo credit: virginiawoolfblog.com

 

From My Café Table

From my café table that faced the park, I watched at first the little girl (three, no, maybe four years of age) picking flowers as her nanny read a book to her— Mary Poppins I believe, I could tell by the cover: the large black umbrella; buttoned tweed jacket; spotless white gloves; hair pinned up neatly— it was a small hat with a flower, not her hair; rosy red cheeks. The nanny read on monotonously, as if reading to a wall— barely displaying happiness while reading the happy tale. The girl giggled to herself jumping around with the blowing leaves around her, like galloping horses or flying birds or buzzing bees. She bowed and picked up flowers as if the Queen, the end of a performance, or touching her toes—first a marigold then a poppy, then another marigold; but how joyously she picked each as if she found a pence for her pink purse that she held onto; a treasure box; a cache of little things. She flounced, swirled, and danced with her marigolds, her poppies, her purse; content. The nanny read on— what a rock in such a meadow; dismal, boring, cheerless, as humdrum as the hues of the drinks at the café tables: the burning black coffee and barely refreshing tea; as locals read the papers covering their faces; a protective shield; an obscure cloak; a source of shade from the blistering sun. The men’s day would go on, quite the same as usual; a morning drink and paper, work, work, work, and then go out with young girls until the sunrise; or go home to their families, eat with their families, talk to their children, their wives, sitting in absolute boredom, bleakness, with nothing to speak of the next day to come. My ears were tickled again by the rustling of leaves and the little girl’s laughs; with her marigolds and poppies, she made a crown to wear on her head; the towering trees formed a castle with turrets and walls; and the grass that served as the carpeted flooring; and the park path, the moat. “Ding!” –What was that? Oh, my order! My dark coffee and dull croissant are waiting.

 

- Winter (Major course)

 

Quote of the Day - Vonnegut

"Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn't it such a relief to have somebody say that?"

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

Photo credit: Nils Jorgensen / Rex Features

Guest Speaker - Clémentine Beauvais

This week's classes are loosely structured around "the craft of writing" - what does it take to get a manuscript published? What kinds of routines do authors establish for themselves? How do you know when a piece is done? With that in mind, we welcomed children's book author Clémentine Beauvais, creator of the Sesame Seade Mystery series: Sleuth on Skates (2013) and the upcoming Gargoyles Gone AWOL and Scam on the Cam. Fortunately, Clémentine is just as hilarious and engaging in person as she is on the page, and students were treated to discussions on the significance of place while establishing a narrative (Clémentine's books are set in Cambridge) and the logistics of getting published, from manuscript to bookshelf.

Thank you, Clémentine!

Quote of the Day - O'Connor

“Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.” 

Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)

Photo credit: AP

People by the River Cam

The barefoot lady likes to hope

of English chimneys and coils of rope.
If she can get up there,
She can go anywhere!
On punting boats she can elope.

- Muriel (Minor course)

Quote of the Day - Bradbury

“That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.”

- Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) 












Photo credit: http://www.esquire.com