Creative Intersections

Hey fellow poets!

So as the semester ends and we have time again to pursue our interests, I’ve been wondering what we’re all going to be up to. We’re all poets, but our creative talents and skills are not limited to poetry. There’s a world of writing, music, art, and other such things that we’re involved in, and I want to hear about what other kinds of creative endeavors you all are into, and how one creative outlet may influence the other(s).

For me, I like to make art on the side when I have a free minute, and I’m also into slam poetry. I like to tell stories, so I think this is evident in my artwork. Often I’ll make a drawing and will have an entire story of what significance every little detail has and how they all come together to tell a story. Every once in a while, I’ll also try my hand at fiction writing, but I feel as though I get so caught up in the language and imagery of the writing that I have difficulty ever completing my stories.

What about you? I know many of you like to draw or take pictures, or are involved in music and other fields of writing entirely, so let me know!

In the meantime, I hope your summers are all filled with creative things and beaches and mangoes and fantasy novels and hammocks and happiness.

-Pam

5 Replies to “Creative Intersections”

  1. I love to watch movies! My family is filled with movie buffs so I’m just continuing the tradition. Movies, like many other forms of art, are wonderful expressions of the “self” or “selves.” My inspiration to write comes from the big screen! Just because I love movies so much, and I feel as if they are very important to the literary world when considering the process of writing screenplays, I suggest you check out Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). The camera work is sublime! The acting is ridiculously good! And the script is a personal favorite of mine (and anything that quotes Raymond Carver’s poems/short stories definitely gets brownie points).

  2. In the summer, I largely work on costumes with friends because I’m in that group of convention-goers that has no life. While I don’t write for a good portion of the end of May into June, I find that taking my mind off writing for a while gives me more of a clean slate and is, for the most part, better for inspiration when I sit down to write again. This also ties into movies and other media (where do we get the costumes from, after all?) and that can be very inspiring as well.

    I also go to renaissance faires, of course, because what kind of nerd would I be without them? Where would I be without renaissance faires? With so many people telling stories, performances, music, costumes, etc. it’s very easy to get writing material there. Now that I think about it, I’ve never sat down to write about a renaissance faire before. I might go do that.

  3. This is a really good question! I’ve been so curious to see what other hats we all wear. I’m going to try to read a bunch over the summer, novels and poetry books, and I’m going to try to teach myself songwriting. It’s weird trying to do songwriting and poetry at the same time, because I feel like there’s more room to do cheap rhymes or forms in songwriting, which I’m going to try to avoid. Plus, there’s a lot to learn about writing a progression in a key or across keys, writing hooks, middle 8s, etc, so hopefully it’ll yield good results. I’m also going to try to hike somewhere every day (even in Ireland).

  4. I don’t do much. Most of the time I stay in my bed watching Manga hauls on Youtube until my mother forces me to get groceries from the nearby supermarket. I mostly read and this summer I’m going to try to read my novels written in Spanish because I feel like I’ve been losing my Spanish tongue–everyday is a struggle to roll those r’s now. I think I might take up drawing Manga because I’ve always been interested in drawing a story. I also want to learn how to play the trumpet.

  5. I used to play the clarinet and bassoon, but since I had to return the instruments to my high school when I graduated, I can’t really do that anymore. One of my suitemates recently bought a ukulele, so I’ve been fooling around with that a bit. (When I was younger I actually used to play uke and sing to randoms on Omegle ha!) Anyhow, while I will definitely have to read school books since I’m taking Humanities II abroad this summer, I really do hope to get some relaxed reading & writing in. But in all honesty, most of my waking hours (and probably 90% of my thoughts) will be consumed by figure skating and preparing for the upcoming season while I have available ice time with my coaches and choreographer. In one of my poems, I made it seem like skating is a chore, a job, something that my parents forced me into and required me to perfect. And while that’s true to an extent, taking a few years off because of injury made me reevaluate my goals, and now I skate mostly for myself. On the ice, I really can take on any character. I don’t know how to dance, but I love the creativity and interpretation involved when embodying characters of different genres of music. For me, skating is just as much about the art of performing to music as it is about the athleticism of jumps and spins. I honestly don’t feel more free or alive anywhere else than on ice (except maybe on mountains).

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