Jodeci x Bryson Cole

After the release of “New Wave”, Bryson Cole has been silent and he is back by dropping his new single “Jodeci”.. “The start of Bryson Cole SZN, new music will be following up very soon.”

Poetry Today

Staff Writer: Orian Johnson

Photo from libwww.library.org

There’s a lot of cynicism in today’s society, and while it’s always been present, it’s much more prevalent considering how much more vocal we are. People are much quicker to criticize rather than praise when it comes to any medium of self expression. For a quick, easy example, check the comment section of virtually any video on YouTube, there are comments criticizing the content, calling the creator a sellout for monetizing videos, people will even go for the low hanging fruit and attack their looks. The worst part is that’s one small aspect of modern society’s inherently more critical nature. The focus of this article, however, is the effect this has on poetry and the stigma it’s created about the art form. As a fan and writer of poetry myself, I’ve experienced firsthand the way people react when you mention that you enjoy reading or writing poetry. The reactions are usually something along the lines of a sarcastic or apprehensive “Oh, okay.” Those reactions are born from the cynicism of today that tells us poetry is for “edgy” young teenagers who don’t understand their feelings, or poetry for that matter; and the stigma about men writing poetry is a totally different story. People look down on poetry with a sort of: “You’re trying too hard to be deep” attitude when they don’t understand. What they don’t understand is poetry is an outlet for emotions that can create a wealth of emotions in the reader. From use of intricate symbolism to vivid imagery, or even visual poems like Grasshopper by E.E. Cummings, poetry is more than just some angry words a 14 year old with a basic understanding of English wrote down in their journal because they were sad. I hope that any of you reading aren’t so discouraged that you don’t put your works out there for others to see. Poetry is an excellent, viable means of self expression, and no amount of sarcastic remarks or confused looks should make you think otherwise.

A Complaint and A Possible Soultion For English

Staff Writer: Orian Johnson

 

I came across a tweet a while back complaining that English as a class, isn’t a subject that should be be graded. Though it’s not inherently difficult to understand why, as I’ve seen other posts on Twitter and Tumblr like it, and even heard the complaints in person. Now the explanation and solution I have hinge on the students being in high school, as there are already creative writing classes in college.

What I believe students are trying to get across is that English is conceptually, the one subject that technically shouldn’t have any wrong answers, especially when it comes to writing, where creativity is truly allowed to flow aside from art. Even more so when a writer has their own vision and target audience in mind. That’s not to say creative writing can’t be graded or gauged on a specific or accurate scale. Concepts like character depth, purposeful symbolism, dialogue and how it exemplifies character identity, consistency/continuity in characters and environments are all taken into account when considering the quality of a work. For example, The Great Gatsby, a book most read in high school is widely accepted as a classic and lauded as a great book. The story is mostly carried through symbolism which seeps into every aspect of the story. Character names tell the reader the gist of their personalities, colors are used to convey motives and emotion, etc. The characters are consistent and their depth comes from the reader making analysis of them, and in a surprisingly simple way. I’m not trying to write a review of the novel though. Qualities of a work like that aren’t necessarily down to a perfect science as every writer is different as well as every reader, but each aspect could theoretically be broken down into tiers that could be given some kind of rating. Though not in the sense of your superintendent wagging his finger and telling you that your vocabulary wasn’t strong enough.

This isn’t something I plan on trying to implement as I’ve already graduated and will be majoring in English with creative writing, but perhaps somebody reading this with more influence than I have and more free time to give this idea more thought could come up with a more sound solid solution.