To open the show, a long, somber instrumental section came through the speakers — so long that the audience’s cheers faltered. Then band members and, finally, Samuel Holden Jaffe hopped on stage. The upbeat introduction to “NFU” started playing, and Jaffe ran and danced across the stage. 

The first thing my friend said to me was, “Oh my god, he is so drunk right now.” Sure enough, he had a sway in his step, and when he started singing, he clutched the microphone like a lifeline. Sometimes he leaned at an angle, and other times he’d point at the audience with a limp, awkwardly outstretched hand. Whether or not he was actually under the influence is impossible to know, but be that as it may, his stage presence suggested that he was quite intoxicated. 

The first few songs he played were fine and the crowd reacted appropriately. However, there wasn’t that feeling of being one living, breathing organism that I long for at concerts. The reason I go to concerts is because it feels magical to hear hundreds of voices echoing my favorite songs, to feel like I’m a part of something larger than myself. Initially, I didn’t get that from the DWG show. Of course, the reactions of the crowd are not entirely caused by the singer, but there was a disconnect that I think both parties contributed to during Monday’s show. 

The most profound disappointment I had was when Jaffe performed “Chastain.” It’s one of his older songs that resonated with me when I was a senior in high school. I listened to it on repeat during the pandemic — it both brought me to tears and comforted me at the same time. But I just wasn’t that impressed with seeing it live. Up until then, I was a firm believer that the live version of a song is always better than the recording. Jaffe, unfortunately, proved me wrong; it was choppy, offbeat, and the instrumentals quickly became way too loud for a song that is slow and melancholic. I couldn’t hear the same emotion in his voice at the show; his singing was stoic at best, slurred and messy at worst. One of the most powerful lines in the song, “I don’t wanna be a ghost when I’m dead / I think I’m tired of jumpscares,” didn’t feel like a gut punch at all ­— they were just words. It most certainly did not have the cathartic effect I had expected.

The show continued, and I was feeling pretty sour. The song I’d looked forward to most had come and passed, and I was unimpressed. A turning point was marked, thankfully, when Jaffe gave a speech between “Alone Together” and “Glitter & Honey.” The speech was somewhat eloquent, somewhat predictable, and can be summarized along the lines of “I wrote these songs when I was doing pretty poorly, but hey, it got better for me, so if you’re doing poorly, don’t worry too much, it’ll get better for you too.” It was simple but sweet, and it resonated.

From then on, the atmosphere steadily improved. Jaffe’s vocals began to shine through more, and I remembered the reason I like DWG so much. So many of his songs have a desperate sense to them — they are dramatic in the best way possible. There is an urgency to his ballads about love and heartbreak, I listen to his songs and I feel like I’m on the cusp of something big. He stacked the last part of the set with some of his most upbeat songs, which I think worked to his advantage. He had a bit too much energy for some of the slower, sorrowful numbers, but this energy was what ultimately engaged the crowd with his last five or so songs before the encore. Finally, the crowd had seemed to warm up. During “Perfume” and “All We Ever Do Is Talk,” the whole audience was jumping and singing along — we felt like one connected being. The end of the show is what I’ll remember the most, and with quite a bit of fondness. 

For the encore, Jaffe finally seemed to get the note of desperation that is so prominent in his recorded music with “We Will Never Be Like Anybody Else.” As he belted out the impassioned lyrics, I wondered if, perhaps, he was just nervous at the beginning of the show. Maybe that was why “Chastain” felt rushed, and this one was so gripping. The finale of the show, “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat,” was strong. I left the venue, bought the obligatory band T-shirt, and overall, felt satisfied. 

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a typical concert film — minimal embellishments, for the most part a straight-up documentary of the show — and that is what makes it so special. While nothing can truly mimic the charged atmosphere of an actual concert, the film makes seeing Swift perform live a much more accessible experience. The unfortunate reality is, not only were tickets hard to secure in the initial sale, but resale prices were prohibitively high for the average concertgoer. While I think this is part of a much larger problem that needs solving, in the meantime, I appreciate the ability to see my favorite artist in the best way I can.

The film highlighted how skilled of a live performer she is. While I love her singing and lyrics in general, Swift isn’t to everyone’s taste, and that’s totally fine! However, it’s hard to argue that her elaborate sets and powerful vocals for each song aren’t the mark of a talented artist. The film captured her belting out high notes and the incredible props, outfits, and dance routines she had arranged differently for each “era” of the tour. Many artists can get up on stage in jeans and a T-shirt and sing their songs live, but one thing is for sure about Swift: she puts on a show. The Eras Tour film is able to portray this from all angles, close-ups and long shots, and overall spotlights her performance abilities.

Swift isn’t the only person that the film depicts well. Alongside Swift, there is a whole team of backing vocalists and dancers that help her create the experience that is The Eras Tour. While I haven’t actually been to the show, I would speculate that during the commotion of the concert, it may be hard to give those other performers the attention they deserve. From what I know about large concerts, including Swift’s Fearless and Speak Now tours, there is so much stimulation that it’s hard to focus on anything but Swift’s singing. In the film, the talent of her team is obvious, and at certain points they are almost as centralized as Swift herself. It does well at showing how many people are directly involved in making the performance so breathtaking. Though, I will say, I was disappointed that the only credit they received was at the end, when Swift mentioned her dancers as she was taking bows and finishing the show. In her previous concert film, Taylor Swift Reputation Stadium Tour, she introduced each of her dancers by name toward the beginning of the show. I thought that this was a better way to recognize the people so essential to the show. 

I found Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour to be especially enjoyable because it allowed me to focus on the smaller details of the show. At live performances, I am usually swept up in the lights, the noise, the action, and all of the chaos that is par for the course of a massive show like Swift’s. An element that the film captured and that I probably would’ve missed at the actual show, is those seemingly minor aspects such as patterns on her outfits, jewelry she was wearing, or her facial expressions. In turn, how she chose to perform certain songs — as in, what body language she was conveying or what emotions she showed on her face — helped me understand those songs more. In watching the film, I was able to truly see how Swift wanted her songs to come across. 

I might’ve also been able to appreciate the actual vocals in the film more than I would’ve at the concert. As I mentioned, it’s easy to get caught up in the energy of a show. An inherent part of being at a large show is being a part of a large audience. The nervous excitement and almost constant cheers and applause are certainly fun, but they do affect how well you can hear the actual singer. In the film I was able to hear Swift’s vocals isolated and in their full glory. 

Like I said, I understand if Taylor Swift isn’t everyone’s favorite artist. But, even if she’s not to your personal taste, it’s impossible to deny that she’s been breaking ground with this tour. Her opening night was the most-attended concert by a female artist in U.S. history. The ticket sales were unprecedented: Ticketmaster sold two million tickets to The Eras Tour in a single day. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour has been no different in terms of record breaking. It had the widest-spanning release for a concert film, as well as the highest opening weekend for a concert film in the U.S. It also had the highest single-day presales ever. Like her or not, Swift has some influence. I’m so excited to see what she does next.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

How did you get started with creative writing? Has it always been an interest?

One thing I loved about Oberlin is it always felt like we were encouraged to explore anything that we were interested in. I never felt like I had to limit myself. I remember being at a party once as a first-year. Everyone was doing the thing where they’re like, “What’s your major?” and someone said Physics. Someone else talking to them was like, “Is that it?” I thought it was such a funny encapsulation of how you expect people to be like, “Oh, yeah, I’m Physics and Trumpet Performance.” That was just a really common thing, that you didn’t just have to be in one box. And so I took the opportunity to explore widely. I think I’d always been interested in creative writing. I took a writing class with former Professor of Creative Writing Dan Chaon. I learned a lot. I started taking poetry in 2020 because I heard about a cool workshop that was happening with Megan Falley. She teaches a workshop called “Poems That Don’t Suck,” which I highly recommend. I wanted to write poetry so that I could propose to my partner in the form of a poem. I turned out to really fall in love with it. I wasn’t published all that much, but I felt like if I could just learn to see the world a little bit more sharply and take down information, that’s already worth it to go through life noticing more.

Science is typically thought of as very separate from creative writing. How do these different facets of your life connect?

I think science is the lens through which I found my voice in poetry. It gives me new things to start to notice. This poem that got published is about how when you look out into the stars, you’re limited by the speed of light into how far you see. So anytime you’re looking at the stars, we’re looking at the past. Stars could have already died by the time they reach us. Imagine if you could travel really far into space, you’d be able to look back on planet Earth and see our past, too. Just being able to think about those things is inspiration — I’m trying to work through the beauty of the world through a scientific perspective. 

The other part of the story is that I got trained with a Ph.D. in Biology, but while I was at Carnegie Mellon, I started thinking about the way that Oberlin brings attention back to being in service to the world and thinking about bigger issues. I started to be really bothered that no one was training us how to talk about science outside the lab, talk about our work and why it matters, and to have a better relationship with science and society. I was really frustrated seeing science being misquoted in the news, so I started trying to figure out ways to do science communication. That led me to this whole process of developing workshops and a student group called Public Communication for Researchers. I was leaving the traditional science route. I have one foot in the science world and one foot in the writing world — the crossover has always been there. I think it’s a very Oberlin thing. It’s about how to do good in the world and change the world.

Can you talk a little bit about your writing process, either for this poem specifically or in general?

For me, poetry starts with keeping an idea notebook. I just started to go around the world and notice things and write them down, what Meghan Falley called “glimmers,” although I’m not sure if she created that term. Once you start having these, you can sit down and work. I would do some drafts, and then what was really the gift of finding poetry communities is I would meet with them every week to workshop. I did that for maybe two or three years after I took this workshop — just meeting and reading each others’ work and having some co-working time. I learned different things to look for in poetry to make it stronger. There became sort of a philosophy of poetry, of what I think makes something interesting. It’s balancing the ways you talk about abstract, emotional ideas, that we nicknamed “clouds” and “anchors,” things that are sort of specific and really down to what’s happening. And so I’m trying to find a good mix of those things. 

One of the funny things about this poem in particular: it’s my second acceptance ever. Last year, I racked up 100 rejections — I made it a goal to get 100 rejections, and then I celebrated. I had a rejection celebration party. In fact, I even submitted a version of this poem to the same contest last year, and it didn’t make it out of round one. What do I make of that? I kept working on it. So I think it’s also about the power of revision, that I tweak things and make things a little bit sharper. I said, “Okay, this is just another opportunity to keep working on it.” It’s not magic. You just keep doing it.

What about Oberlin do you think shaped you the most?

I felt encouraged to explore things based on intellectual interest and not based on already being good at them. I think it’s really important to do things that you enjoy even when you’re not good at them. I learned to pay attention to what was pulling me. It was a very exploratory time that let me not be constrained but learn from different disciplines. I think that’s something that was really good for me and I’ve tried to carry with me; following your interests where they go, as opposed to stopping them short. That’s the thing that still sticks with me more than 10 years later.

Bottoms takes everything one might think of when they imagine an “American teenager” or a “teen movie” — football quarterbacks, stupid high school cliques, and classmate crushes — and makes it into a satirical masterpiece. It’s full of obvious hyperbole — no high school football game is actually as insane as it’s portrayed in the film. However, the exaggerations don’t come out of nowhere. I remember in my hometown high school when an unsuccessful men’s sports team had larger-than-life posters of each individual player hung up in the gym. Never mind the more successful women’s teams, or literally anything that wasn’t a sport. In Bottoms, I watched the football players parade around, plaster their advertisements all over the school, and receive blatant favoritism from faculty, all of which is portrayed with such a level of absurdity that it’s obvious the film is spoofing real life —  and its message is still relevant. 

The first few moments of the film show the two female protagonists Josie (Ayo Edebiri) and PJ (Rachel Sennott) preparing for a carnival. Once they arrive, they fumble conversations with their love interests, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Jordan Gerber). What I noted about this is that the queerness of the main characters was blatant to the point where it was even joked about. I was initially so excited to see Josie and PJ’s lesbianism highlighted. This was so refreshing to me, because so often the movies I see that feature queer characters focus on the fact that these characters are in the closet and the plot is driven by their struggle to hide their identity. For instance, when Happiest Season came out, I was thrilled to have a lesbian holiday movie, but disappointed that the plot was entirely centered around Harper trying to keep her girlfriend, Abby, a secret from her family. 

However, as the film progresses, I’m not so sure their queerness is highlighted effectively. While I loved the execution of the film — the jokes are hilarious, the plot is wonderfully wild — I have to take issue with the premise. The entire reason Josie and PJ start their “empowering” girls’ fight club is to win over the hearts of Isabel and Brittany — more to the point, they want to have sex with Isabel and Brittany. They essentially pull off this whole elaborate scheme just to get into some girls’ pants, which doesn’t sit right with me. It hits a little too close to home with the stereotype of conniving lesbians, that awful notion that all lesbians are simply trying to “get” other women. There is a fine line between playing on stereotypes in a way that’s lighthearted, or even an astute societal critique, and playing on stereotypes that are actually quite harmful. I’m not sure that Bottoms successfully walks that line. It feels wrong that the reason everything is set in motion is because of two lesbians and their conspiracy. It’s quite a dangerous trope to tinker with. 

That said, there are other aspects of the film and its messaging that I think are perfect. One scene that stuck out to me was in the gym as Josie and PJ’s friend Hazel (Ruby Cruz) is getting beaten to a pulp by the school’s top boxer. Tim (Miles Fowler), the unofficial second-in-command of the football team, had lied to her and said she’d be fighting PJ — whom she had a grudge against — and more importantly, would’ve had a fair fight with. Tim essentially sets up a situation where Hazel would get absolutely mauled. Visually, this is the most serious and disturbing scene of the film, one that interrupts the general spirit of amusement. Tim then turns to the spectators in the bleachers and addresses Josie, PJ, and the rest of their fight club, asking, “What is wrong with you?” This statement directed at women juxtaposed against what actually happened — a man attacking a woman — is chilling and starkly relevant. All too often, women are victim-blamed for the violence perpetrated against them. While Bottoms is an overall upbeat film, this darker, more serious moment is well-placed, thoughtful, and unfortunately poignant. 

Another aspect of the film that spoke to me was Josie and her romance. Josie is not nearly as sneaky as PJ — she is clearly uncomfortable with their plan, and remorseful when she realizes the damage it has done. Josie is funny, relatable, and genuine. Her arc is endearing; watching her anxiously converse with Isabel reminded me of my own high school days, and their love story is one we all needed.

Watching Josie and Isabel at the end was magical. It mirrored the hyped-up ending scenes of every other teen movie — the dim lighting, the music swelling to consume all background noise, everything else seemingly slowing down. The camera pans around Josie and Isabel in their embrace, spinning them around the center of the movie screen, larger than life, and kissing. And kissing! I almost wanted to squeal. It has been so long since I was invested in a movie romance. They’re all the same to me: one way or another, the guy gets the girl. Not only is it predictable, but as a queer woman, the heterosexuality that’s so constantly shoved down my throat doesn’t resonate with me. We needed a movie where, instead, the girl gets the girl, where queerness is spotlighted.

The fact that Bottoms mimics the general tropes of a “dumb” teen movie is part of what makes this moment so brilliant. While we can all dismiss teen cult classics as unrealistic, I believe there is, or at least was, a part of all of us that daydreamed we’d get our teen movie moment. You might have heard of the phrase “healing my inner child” — seeing Josie and Isabel kiss at the end of Bottoms healed my inner teen.

Walking away, I don’t entirely know how to sum up my feelings. I want to be clear that I enjoyed the movie very much. I was smiling and laughing practically the whole time. However, its portrayal of queerness is such a mixed bag — in some ways, it is normalized and honest, but in others, it feels contrived based on negative stereotypes. Why am I okay with the football players being portrayed in a poor light, but troubled that the film plays on a negative lesbian stereotype? Because one of these groups continues to thrive, and one is actually harmed by that rhetoric in real life. Bottoms is both fun and insensitive, both empowering and demeaning. I recommend it, but urge the viewer to keep their eyes open to its damaging aspects.

During the opening track — arguably the best on the album — Rodrigo has found her voice. She begins the song in a soft way, her tone sincere. It is only with her lyric, “I’ve got sun in my motherfuckin’ pocket, best believe,” at the end of the first verse that she starts to hint at the underlying anger she soon releases in the chorus. From then on, the song becomes an anthem, her singing becoming sharper and the instrumentals sounding edgier. It isn’t until the end that she regains her softness, calming down her fury. This is when she asserts that she is “grateful all the time,” composing herself in a way women are all too familiar with. The journey of “all-american bitch” reminded me of America Ferrera’s monologue in Barbie — both women are making points that barely scratch at the surface of feminism, yet need to be said. In other words, I don’t think Rodrigo is saying anything groundbreaking, but her vocal critique of how society treats female celebrities and women in general is highly necessary. Not to mention, the song is a bop. 

I loved Rodrigo’s previous album SOUR. Pop is not necessarily my go-to music genre, but Rodrigo just did everything right in her debut album. It was cohesive, honest, and featured her stellar vocals — how she hits those high notes in “drivers license” is beyond me. That said, the songs that intrigued me most on SOUR were those that were a bit punchier than the rest, particularly “brutal,” “good 4 u,” and “jealousy, jealousy.” These songs stood out from the rest for their brutal — pun intended — honesty about who she is and how she perceives the world. It is this style — the gritty, incisive power-pop — that I’m so glad she carried forward into GUTS. Alongside the opener, “bad idea right?”, “ballad of a homeschooled girl,” and “get him back!” all struck me as a continuation of what she’d hinted at in SOUR: she has more to her than somber heartbreak ballads. This is where Rodrigo shines. 

Sometimes her lack of longevity in the music industry is obvious. I wasn’t impressed with the central metaphor in “making the bed” and the lyric “skin like puff pastry” in “lacy” irked me to no end. Maybe I’m just a snob who has worked in a pastry shop before, but I simply can’t picture skin being like puff pastry. Those two songs got stuck in my head — not in the fun, upbeat way the others did, but in how many times she repeated the title during the song. On the other hand, Rodrigo demonstrates that she does know how to produce compelling lyrics in songs like “vampire,” with its fast paced rhymes and imagery, or “the grudge,” with its show-stopping line “your flowers filled with vitriol.” 

Despite my critique of certain songs, Rodrigo has done what I believe all good writing should do: she has taken the individual and made it universal. When SOUR came out, the story of her heartbreak with Joshua Bassett was horrifically publicized; there is no denying that her privacy was shattered. She made the best possible thing she could out of that situation with SOUR, and has subsequently elaborated on it with GUTS. She has a remarkable ability to make girls her age feel heard. 

The final song of the album, “teenage dream,” is an apologetic, gut-wrenching song about failing to live up to expectations. Rodrigo is speaking from the perspective of a pop-star, yet simultaneously as a teenager/young adult. She vocalizes what was certainly my long-time fear, and what I imagine plagues teens in general: “They all say that it gets better / It gets better the more you grow / Yeah, they all say that it gets better / It gets better, but what if I don’t?” She repeats these lines four times in the outro of the song, allowing them time to really sink in. Here, she doesn’t sugarcoat, she doesn’t pretend to be cheerful and optimistic. She is honest, and in that, she is defining herself. 

i am where i’m from —

8 dead cats later,

buried in the yard of a house i drive by

whenever i can bear it

& my sweet dog 

doesn’t follow me through the woods 

unless heaven is real. 

they left me & i left 

myself splattered on the pavement,

spilling over the side

of the wall that separates 

the beach from the park, i’m hooked on a fence

i tried to hop and got

stuck on

you tell me the smoke

is gonna kill me, because for you it is simple:

if a building was burning you’d

jump out the window but 

my father kisses me with dragon breath. 

i am a sequoia & my roots

run deep:

i remember when they knocked me out. 

i swallowed the astroturf and then threw up 

behind the net so

i still think death tastes like burnt rubber 

the ER doctor said my brain was only bruised, 

not bleeding, give it a few weeks

& you’ll feel normal

that was seven years ago, i’m afraid 

the worst is over

& i’m no better,

the worst is over & i’m no better.

you tell me i’m not a sequoia, i’m your sunflower

& i don’t need an ax

to cut me from this town’s woodwork

but if i wasn’t birthed

& toughened by the flames

what was i? this is good damage

i’m not just damaged 

goods i swear i am also

the bubbles that came 

from my own pursed lips

when i was two and happy 

i am still cheering at the concert 

just another face in the crowd. 

the truth is when i got hit

in the head it didn’t change me

just blurred my vision

into clarity:

it took 7 years to wrap

my mind around the fact

that home is a feeling —

next time you ask me to come with you

i’ll get in the car

watch the forest melt to fields 

endless & inviting — country roads, take me home

Lucy Curtis is a fourth-year Creative Writing major from Beverly, MA. “damage” is the first poem in a series that centers on the concept of home — how it can be lovely and how it can be haunting. She has worked with COUNTERCLOCK Journal and has other pieces forthcoming in the Plum Creek Review.

The speaker of the event, Eric and Jane Nord Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and Chair of Hispanic Studies Ana María Díaz Burgos, opened her presentation with an overview of the history of witchcraft during the Spanish Inquisition. She discussed in depth how the Inquisition persecuted witches, highlighting the association between female sexuality and witchcraft. The persecution of witches has been a way to subjugate women across many culture, and the Spanish Inquisition was no different. She also noted that, often, defendants put on trial by the Inquisition were not informed of the fact they were being charged nor of the descriptions of their charges. Sometimes, torture and isolation were used to force confessions. The history she outlined was dark and painful. 

During the second part of her talk, Díaz Burgos spoke about the exhibition, “What’s in a Spell? Love Magic, Healing, and Punishment in the Early Modern Hispanic World.” She and two of the classes she taught, Saints, Sinners and Other Cursed Women and Inquisitorial Practices: Heretics, Torture & Fear, worked for over a year alongside Hannah Wirta Kinney, curator of academic programs at the AMAM, to research, plan, and curate the exhibit. In her presentation, she focused on three artists featured in the exhibit: Albrecht Dürer, Francisco de Goya, and Romare Bearden. After a close analysis of pieces by each artist, she concluded that, in their art, Dürer feared the witches, Goya critiqued how society and the Inquisition treated them, and Bearden mourned them. 

After her final statement, a hearty applause resounded through the room, and Díaz Burgos fielded questions about her history with the subject and more. In an interview, she outlined how she gained interest in this topic.

“I was introduced to witchcraft in college,” she explained. “However, I was interested in the subject since I was a teenager … And then when I was in college, I had an amazing class that was called Nuns and Witches, and I got to go to the Inquisitor archives in Cartagena de Indias. I really liked the opportunity to get to know all of this from not only the historical side, but also from the cultural perspective. Then, even though I came to the U.S. to do my PhD, and my primary focus was Neo-Baroque fiction, I had a class about Inquisition in Spain.”

When asked if she felt the presentation went well, she noted the audience’s engagement.

“I always can feel the temperature of the talk, not by the content … but the audience engagement. If I make a joke, and they laugh … they did. If I made a comment that was trying to see if they were paying attention, they were. And then the questions they had — I got questions about the curatorial process; I got questions about other traditions; I got questions — one that I really liked —  about the difficulties of reading these texts, unearthing women’s voices. I love that question.”

The presentation was also well-received by students. College second-year Loie Schiller spoke about her personal connection to the presentation. 

“I’ve always found the history of witches and witchcraft fascinating, especially as a tool to subjugate women,” Schiller said. “My family has a history of Celtic pagan witchcraft, so an important thing for me, my whole life, [has been] learning about that. I wanted to learn more about other cultures, versions of witchcraft, and what that looked like. I [enjoyed it] very much. I thought [Díaz Burgos] was really eloquent. I thought that the topic was fascinating, and the art pieces were really moving.”

Another attendee, College second-year Alex Lawler, emphasized the importance of the subject.

“I think it’s always important to learn about history in general, so that it’s never repeated,” Lawler said. “And that’s something that we can learn from. I think the history of women is really important. In this context, I think it’s important to dive into what is beyond the official documents, like what [Díaz Burgos] talked about in the lecture: what’s officially written down by the victors or the oppressors isn’t necessarily what’s really true. And I think that that’s really important especially when it comes to the Spanish Inquisition.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

It says on your website that you’re a writer and a sound artist. Can you elaborate a little on what this looks like and the kind of art you create?

I work between these two media primarily because I view poetry and writing as things that can also occur off the page. A lot of the sound-based work that I do is trying to make poetry more physically tangible — something that you can visualize in an installation setting, or literally walk through with multiple voices. My goal is to lift poetry off of the page and also place it in a particular location to encourage unanticipated or maybe nontraditional encounters with poetry. 

How did you get started with this unique form of media?

I like to tell the story that when I grew up as a classical musician, I began to get tired of playing the works created by other people. I wanted to compose my own. And that led me to try out being a composer, but it didn’t take me very long to discover that I was a terrible composer. So then I became a poet, because I was so greedy — I wanted sound, and I wanted imagery, and I just wanted everything. Poetry seemed to be able to encompass that. But even though I became a poet, I never lost my love for sound and other art forms. Whenever I can bring all of them back into contact with one another, whether it’s installation, or sound, or visual poetry, I try to take advantage of that.

Can you explain your creative process? What goals or intentions do you have with your art?

It varies a lot piece to piece, I would say. When I’m working on the page, a lot of it is almost collage-like. I have what I call a graveyard of lost poems, where I take pieces out and use them as seeds for other poems, and they just start to multiply. I often find that when I write one poem, I need to write that same poem in a different way, or a poem about that same topic in a different way. When it comes to my multimedia work, it often comes out of necessity. I know sometimes it can seem like, “well, why add all of these multiple modalities to something that’s already complete?” But I feel like when the topic demands complexity or polyvocality, or more layers, then I turn to these other media. 

A lot of times, my inspiration will come from something historical that I might be interested in. The book that I’ve been writing now is a collection of poetry about a place called Centralia, PA, which is near where I grew up. It was condemned due to an underground mine fire. All of the people had to be relocated. I was really intrigued by the digital presence of this place, and the stories of the people who had to move and all of the metaphors and foreshadowing that I saw loaded into this story of Centralia. So a lot of my creative process has to do with history or different stories as well.

I was particularly struck by your visual poem, “Women Making a Scene” — can you talk more about that?

That poem began with an interest in emotional display roles; that is the way that society deems that certain people can or can’t express emotion. I was really intrigued by the gender roles at play and emotional expression in contemporary American society. When are women and girls allowed to express joy? When are we allowed to express anger? And when are those expressions deemed too much? Or, if you will, making a scene? And when does one need to make a scene? And who gets to put that label on it? So I had all of those things mulling about in my brain, and I just kept returning to that phrase “making a scene.” And I thought, well, what if we made it quite literally where you use the stage design diagram and make a scene as a writer that explores the same topics and its contents? I thought that if I’m the one literally determining the scene, that gives a little bit of agency back. I’m the stage designer who gets to put everything in place, instead of other people telling us when you can and cannot express these emotions.

What brought you to Oberlin specifically?

It’s so rare to have a program devoted just to creative writing. I admire that Oberlin approaches creative writing as something that’s just as rigorous as studio art or acting or dance. I was also really thrilled to return to a conservatory setting, and to return to this setting where there’s so many musicians, and there’s also so many writers who are eager to interact with one another. 

How do you hope to get more involved at Oberlin?

I’ve been so invigorated by the interdisciplinarity involved in everything here. I would love to teach a StudiOC cluster or be involved with other programs to think about what it could mean to be a collaborative poet. We often think of poetry as a solitary act — you’re in your studio or your office and you’re writing away, and there’s nobody else. Oberlin is such a vibrant place that I wonder what would happen if we put all of us together — if we wrote poems that were then taken by a composer who sets them to music, or if we worked with TIMARA to make some kind of poem installation? I think there’s so many opportunities here at Oberlin for collaboration.

Do you have any advice for beginner writers?

One of the best pieces of advice I got from a composition instructor, which has translated into poetry, was that whenever you’re trying to write something in a particular genre, listen to or read the exact opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish. What happened in my practice was that in reading the opposite of what I wanted, it gave me permission to explore new avenues in my work. Going to opposite ends of the spectrum can show you the range of what’s out there. And you can make an informed decision about where your poetic practice might lead you. It’s not always about having the magnum opus. It’s about engaging with the process.

The railroad track sculpture located outside Talcott Hall was a student art project that commemorates Oberlin’s role in the Underground Railroad. Oberlin’s involvement with the Underground Railroad began when a former Oberlin student brought people who had escaped enslavement to the Oberlin campus.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Monument

The Martin Luther King Jr. Monument is located at the Martin Luther King Jr. Park on Vine Street. Designed by Professor Emeritus of Studio Art Paul Arnold, the monument is a tall, flat, rectangular tower of bricks with an image of Martin Luther King Jr.’s face. Dr. King visited Oberlin several times over the course of his work, first in 1957, after he initiated the Montgomery bus boycott, then again in ’63, ’64, and ’65. In ’64, he gave his speech “The Future of Integration” in Oberlin. In ’65, he visited Oberlin a final time when he spoke at Commencement and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

The Harpers Ferry Memorial

The Harpers Ferry Memorial is also located within Martin Luther King Jr. Park. This monument honors John A. Copeland Jr., Lewis Sheridan Leary, and Shields Green, all of whom were a part of John Brown’s raid, which was an armed revolt of enslaved peoples on the U.S. federal armory and arsenal in Harpers Ferry, WV, in 1859. Although Brown and his entourage were defeated by the U.S. Marines within three days, Brown’s raid was an act of defiance that provided momentum for the beginning of the Civil War. Copeland and Leary lived in Oberlin at the time of the raid, and Green was also rumored to have lived in Oberlin.

The Oberlin–Wellington Rescue Monument

Another monument located in the Martin Luther King Jr. Park is the Oberlin–Wellington Rescue Monument. This piece memorializes the rescue of John Price, an Oberlin resident. In 1858, slave catchers found and captured him, hoping to send him on a southbound railway in Wellington. However, Oberlin residents learned of this situation and worked alongside residents of Wellington to rescue Price. Their efforts began non-violently, but upon failure to negotiate with the slave catchers, they physically overpowered them. With the help of other rescuers, Price was able to escape and hide with John and Mary Fairchild, two Oberlin residents.

The Bench by the Road

The Bench by the Road is a simple black bench located on the corner of North Main Street and East Lorain Street. This bench was placed in honor of author Toni Morrison, as well as enslaved peoples who traveled with the Underground Railroad and resided in Oberlin at a certain point. The bench was erected by the Toni Morrison Society after Morrison herself once noted the lack of monuments in remembrance of enslaved peoples. Morrison was born in Lorain County, and advocated for the placement of one of these benches in Oberlin due to her personal history and Oberlin’s history of abolitionism.