JON HELGASON

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing senior Melinda Caroline relates her personal experiences in her works. Caroline will be reading her poetry at 8 tonight in the Modern Languages auditorium.

Wednesday October 17, 2001

Creative writing students share their diverse works tonight

If you're a poet, and you know it, clap your hands.

Tonight, six creative writing students with concentrations in poetry will share their works with the community. They are not doing this to complete their degrees but on an invitational basis.

Readers include seniors Sherwin Bitsui, Paul Hsu, Eric Higgins, Jocelynn Goodman and April Greengaard and master's of fine arts student Melinda Caroline.

All of the poems are original compositions.

Greengaard, also a dance senior, draws inspiration for some of her poems from personal experience. The poetry she has written over the past four years is mainly lyrical and narrative and revolves around the theme of human relationships.

"My favorite poem is called 'Accident,'" Greengaard said. "It's about a man and a woman who are married. One day the man leaves on an errand and never comes home because he was in an accident, and the woman (who tells the story) is reflecting on the loss."

For Greengaard, the content of the poem isn't the most important matter.

"I try to pay equal attention to the meaning and the form of the poem," Greengaard said.

Another poet who uses personal experience to fuel her work is Caroline.

The product of 10 years of serious writing, Caroline's poems are fairly short, free verse compositions that contain elements of personal experience.

"The point of my poetry is to elicit some recognition from the audience," Caroline said. "I think there's a sense of shared experience (between the reader and the audience)."

Some of the readers' poetry doesn't deal with personal experience at all.

Higgins' poetry is mainly about a philosophy: the idea that sometimes science doesn't go hand-in-hand with humanity, but at other times it does.

"It's about the emotional side of humanity versus the logical side and bringing them together," he said.

His poems are based on things he thinks of during class or while reading.

His ecology and evolutionary biology minor are the basis for the integration of science into his work and often provide stimuli for his ideas.

"My favorite poem is 'When I Was a Child,'" he said. "It's an imaginative piece about the speaker as a child. Then, as he develops in age, he and his father separate. It uses a lot of science fiction, and it treats them (the father and son) scientifically. I'm honored to have been asked to read."

Each poet will read anywhere from three to six poems during the reading. The reading is part of the Poetry Center's Visiting Poets and Writers Reading Series.

The reading will take place tonight at 8 in the Modern Languages auditorium. It is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.