A Day of Expression: National Writing Day

As I wandered into the GSU on Tuesday I was overcome by magnetic poetry. A large board was full of eccentric phrases that BU’s best passerby poets had put up. National Writing Day’s festivities continued with a full day of grueling workshops designed to really get the reclusive writer out of his or her shell. From 10am-3pm on October 20, nine different workshops on topics ranging from flash fiction and poetry writing to family biography and a quick and dirty 10-minute writing clinic were held on the third floor of the GSU.

This last clinic especially drew my attention: the students were to write something in five minutes and then have it work-shopped for the subsequent five. I was immediately reminded of a similar creative assignment I had done in AP English during junior year of highschool: the topic was water. For some unfortunate reason, I have not been prompted to complete an inclass, creative endeavor since that year. The closest I have come to such a thing has been during orgo exams when I had to create reaction mechanisms for 90 minutes straight. I am aware of BU’s creative writing classes, but somehow they never fit into my schedule. For these reasons, National Writing Day was revitalizing. It brought together people all in search of a place to get going, get advice, get past writer’s block, and to get heard.

Photo Credit: Andrea Abi-Karam
Photo Credit: Andrea Abi-Karam

Nighttime celebrations continued with coffee house readings in the GSU Backcourt from 7-9PM. Hosted by Dean Elmore, the usually rambunctious Backcourt tapered off to an anticipatory silence. About half of the attendees arrived intentionally, others by chance: either way, most of them stayed to listen. Elmore opened the readings with a passage from “A Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin. He read from yellowed pages bound together by a binding clip. Elmore said that the book changed his life, and that he carries the book with him everywhere.

Second in the procession was renowned poet and Professor Rosanna Warren, who read four of her own works including “After,” which she said is about hurricane Katrina, and “Fear,” a piece written from the perspective of a schizophrenic. Subsequent readers were predominately BU students who all came to read a work that was important to them, or their own works. One student named Erin Power-Fardy read a particularly striking passage from “A Short History of Nearly Everything” written by Bill Bryson. In the introduction, Bryson reduces down the fate of nearly all living organisms from their whole to molecules, atoms, dust, and finally into nothingness. The progression of life into nothingness compares to the breakdown of language, which is what this whole day has really been about. Sentences collapse into phrases, words, syllables, letters, and finally silence.

About Andrea Abi-Karam

Andrea Abi-Karam (CAS '11) is the editor-in-chief of the Quad. She is a neurobiology major and an English minor. She does rat surgery and edits the magazine.

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