Poetry: A Student’s Perspective

Written by Bryan Hall.

I heard the statistic during my junior year: to earn a bachelor’s degree in Communication from Arizona State University, the average student will write approximately 1,700 pages cumulatively over the course of their college education.  This number includes all the undergraduate classes required for credit, meaning every paper in every class even if those classes are ultimately unrelated to a student’s degree path, but is no less staggering to hear when you’re sitting in a classroom working tirelessly toward a graduation ceremony which is at least another two years away.

As the thought process runs its course, you start by being impressed with yourself for the sheer volume of pages you’ve managed to turn out since you started, but that feeling is quickly dwarfed by trepidation.  Suddenly you’re filled with anxiety about your next paper.  How long will it have to be?  What if I’m not able to find enough sources to write five pages about patterns found within the nonverbal queues of single African American women between the ages of eighteen and thirty with regard to sexual flirtation?  Hi.  I’m Bryan and I majored in Communication.

I never found out who researched that statistic about writing.  As I recall it now, I don’t even know who regurgitated the information to me.  What I do remember, most vividly, was the footnote of the study: the only department on Arizona State University’s campus which required more writing than the Hugh Downs School of Communication would issue to its students throughout the course of their educations was the English department.  The end result for English majors was an average of 2,000 pages for a degree.

Writing has always arrived more naturally to me than crunching numbers or quenching a desire for exploring the various scientific avenues of the unexplained.  Still, becoming a famous or even just a reasonably successful writer is much like wanting to be an award winning actor or professional athlete.  So, when I was sitting at my kitchen table during my final semester of high school, trying to decide who I would most like to end up pretending to be for the rest of my life, I pulled away from English as an option because I couldn’t see the value of having such a degree if I wasn’t going to either become a successful writer or a teacher – and I certainly had no desire to teach.

During my senior year of college I was in need of an elective class that satisfied nothing more than a minimum credit hour requirement for electives.  I had already drowned myself in Communication classes and taken a vast majority of anything specific to my major by this time.  So, seeing as the only stipulation was that I had to take a class, I decided to look in the realm of English for something interesting.  After all, just because the chance of making a successful career from writing is slim doesn’t mean I enjoyed the art and practice of it any less.

The class prefix was 217.  Its focus was rooted in creative nonfiction.  In fact, that may have been the actual title of the class come to think of it.  I had already come to the final stretch in my pursuit of a college degree and that magic number of 1,700 had to be nearly within my grasp at that point, so I didn’t see adding a few more pages to that grand total as much of an issue.

In the first week I learned three things.  First, my professor allowed students to submit works of poetry as long as the contents of the poem fit the criteria of the assignment given.  Second, I had already written poems that fit the criteria of nearly every single assignment my professor was going to hand me over the course of the semester.

And lastly, I learned that I knew absolutely nothing about writing poetry prior to taking English 217 and mingling with such genius.  As the class progressed, I permanently attached myself with my professor, Rosemarie, and two other students who undoubtedly belonged there:  Heather and Alo.  The four of us were poets at heart and sought out each other to generate ideas and discuss our work.

Rosemarie was a smattering of contradictions.  She radiated her worth and expertise through every word she spoke and wrote, but no one would ever assume that such genius lurked underneath pigtails and tribal tattoos or behind Hello Kitty T-shirts, cargo pants and sandals.

The anti-authoritative stance she took was unlike anything I had found in a teacher and it immediately perked my interest, causing me to offer her my strictest attention.  Without question Rosemarie is one of an elite handful of other educators who actually impacted my life beyond a classroom.

Heather seemed destined to become a homemaker at first glance.  It wasn’t until further inspection that you realized that she had already lived a lifetime in shoes belonging to another version of herself prior to entering that class.

There was nothing about the human condition she hadn’t already unearthed with her bare hands.  It was only the universe Heather had left to explore and that was precisely her plan.  Perhaps going into that class Heather was still unsure whether or not she was ready to actually tell her story, but regardless of what she decided, she was most certainly capable of telling it well.

Alo was cast from a mold I didn’t know existed when I met him.  He was an engineering major who had a passion for writing.  There were obvious assumptions that came attached to someone math minded sitting in a writing class, but the first time I workshopped with him I had to tear down my original framework of preconceived notions and re-evaluate my perspectives on reality as I understood it.

Alo was a complete anomaly and his point-of-view presented on the page fascinated me.  He eventually left the engineering program to major in English after months of prodding from the rest of us.  Being in contact with such influences, he couldn’t find it in himself to continue denying the power of his creative voice.

Sadly, I was – and still am – far less interesting.  My only accomplishment to speak of at that point was a chapbook of trite rhyming poetry that was published purely out of nepotism the year before I entered the English 217 class.  However, it was there in that classroom where I discovered and groomed my most valuable skill set as a writer: editing.

With regard to the class work load, there was a bit of good news for me:  The entire semester there were only two pieces I turned in which weren’t already roughly written prior to an assignment being given.  The first was an in-class activity and the second was the final project – a braided essay.  I waited until the semester was over and my grade of A was secured before I admitted that to Rosemarie, but since we had become such good friends all she did was laugh at my confession.  Still, the amount of surgery I had to perform on every single piece I turned in made my efforts to cut corners hardly worthwhile.

Nearly five years have passed since our time together in that creative non-fiction class.  In that time we have each begun to truly find ourselves as writers and editors and even publishers.  Rosemarie has teamed up with Heather, Alo and I to create a poetry journal which is slowly gaining momentum within the writing community.

She finished her Ph.D., made the necessary connections to create a website, found a way to increase the quality of the journal’s appearance though an online printer and – most importantly – has given the rest of us something to put ourselves toward…let there be no doubt which of us works the hardest.

Heather has made significant breakthroughs with her creative voice and is now in pursuit of two Master’s programs simultaneously with the intent of helping to mold our publication into even more than it has already become.  Alo has been a constant influence to us, even during a self-imposed hiatus.  He has always managed to keep each of us creatively sharp between workshops and submission sorting.  Meanwhile, I have dabbled in everyone’s business.

I’ve helped Rosemarie edit a future collection of poems here and there.  I’ve been discussing the future of the journal with Heather and planning courses of action needed to implement the next phase of progress.  I’ve also been working at a distance with Alo on a revolutionary project that if assembled correctly could very well become his opus.  The spare time I accumulate is spent at my desk, working and re-working poems, looking back at that once ominous number of 1,700 with calm reminiscence.

Recently I published my second chapbook, and while it’s certainly anything but the greatest work ever composed, this new collection is miles ahead of my first attempt.  I am immensely proud of the way I have evolved creatively and I love being part of such a talented group of writers and the projects we work on.

While the future outcomes of our projects and the level of our successes are unclear, one thing is certain:  I never believed I would feel so at home amongst the prospect and potential of an empty page.  I am grateful to be included within their ranks, grateful that I possess enough talent to belong in the presence of such gifted writers.