Author: Craig

Jackson’s Introductory Statement

This is a short number of poems from two sections of a poetry album from 2016 to 2021, covering the Trump Era. All of them were political but some more subtly. In total, the full album has over 160 poems and this is only a short selection. Each selection does not fit neatly in to one another but they do fit and their fitting is for the audience to dissect. It was going to be recorded but a lack of recording equipment prevented this from happening. I kept their numbers in the album and the dates written.

Jackson’s Selection of Poetry

Rachel’s Reading

Rachel’s Artist Statement

This is an excerpt from my piece about a 19-year-old girl with a difficult home life, and her 30-year-old boss who uses her emotional state to take advantage of her. It was challenging because I put a lot of myself into it, and while the work is fiction, the emotions are real. I hope it elicits feelings from readers, no matter what those feelings are.

Tony’s Artist Statement

This is the most recent story I have written, and it is largely different from almost everything I have written prior. For this story, I wanted to focus on characters; I made character development my goal this semester, as my tendency in writing is a focus on plot or the intention of the story. I figured, what better way to force myself to focus on characters then by writing a story from multiple perspectives, all which eventually intersect serendipitously? The result is
“The Leap Year Tragedy.”

Mathieu’s Reading

Mathieu’s Artist Statement

I wrote this poem as a sort of companion piece to Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Dezembrum,” which also features a similar structure: five quatrains. I usually do not structure my poems this way but in reading Stevens, I wanted to try something different, or rather, an emulation of, in the words of Theodore Roethke, “our father.”