THE DELENDA

THE DELENDA
A Requiem for My Wanton Words

The Purpose of this Delenda: A Limbo Between Digression and Deletion

During my last college semester I studied under a brilliant professor; he taught me to quiet my inner censor and to just write as I wish--despite my post-traumatic-professor-disorder which paralyzes me with self-doubt, these the war-wounds worn by so many students after years of terrible teachers, each either entirely apathetic or deeply entrenched within the utterly rote—their lectures just jaded regurgitations in Power Point, those slides cycling while the students fitfully sleep in-seat.I began writing a memoir for his class and I have yet to finish it; my writing has not been as clear and precise as it was while under my professor’s mentorship and I have more than doubled my original page length, though very little has actually been said therein. I am increasingly lent to my own obsessive compulsive writing tendencies. My prose has of-late been lost in loops and tangles of meaningless tangents—self-indulgent insertions of the beautiful words I love to taste in text.This blog is a collection of passages deleted from my memoir—an attempt to preserve wasted words, which are intrinsically sacred in spite of me. May they have their heaven here; may this final resting place, this Delenda, be better than nothing at all—better than true deletion.

If this unjust medium--this blog--be not the cure for my wild-fire writing, then surely The New School will be.

I was recently accepted to The New School in New York City for their MFA Creative Nonfiction Writing program for Fall 2010. Being accepted into such an esteemed university, being awarded such a coveted spot in their writing MFA program -- it's like winning the academic lottery. I have never been happier than I am in my dreams of a true academic setting. I know this will be the solace I have sought since being under the mentorship of my undergraduate writing professor.

This is me...

This is me...

This is me as well...

This is me as well...
In Death Valley, the Sand Dunes and Solitude Suited me Well.

August 6, 2009

APATHY AND OBLOQUY

APATHY AND OBLOQUY (A Poetic Attempt)

From these soul-fraught summer hours

The vague palliations of wasted-time

Moments lost in listless regression

My muse the silent recession to

The yester-fogged frame of time

Still manifest in mind.

Where the winter-due blanched

The bleak fallen courtyard

And absconded the youth in

Apathy and obloquy

The craven lots fain effaced with crestfallen specter

Of ground grown gaunt with waxing winter

But alas a russet crevice stands align

Immune, countervailed by nigh

And though morrow makes

For barren timber bows,

Tremble-frost falling free

From bluster-blown weeping canopies

One humble crest of walls and windows, upholds the summer flurry

Of dreamy souls, where elsewhere

Sinks the world to destit slumber,

The somber cessation of

earth and youth outdoors.

Wander not beyond these doors,

Lest the yearly night befall you

And muted shall your muse be evermore.

2 comments:

Blasé said...

Nice Words!

Bill said...

Erin,
You are a clearly a gorgeous, intelligent young woman, but, in my humble opinion, you are just trying too hard. Don't try to impress - just simplify your prose (and your poetry) and tell the truth. As Keats said, beauty is truth, and truth beauty. You have the beauty, so the truth must be in there somewhere.