Talk:Introduction to Creative Writing

Review Submission on Ginsberg's America

I think Allen Ginsberg saw this country as a land of opportunity and hope. He expected everything America advertises itself to be: Equal, full of deep and passionate people, accepting. He felt let down by our obsession with pop culture, and our cruel treatment of those who fail to fall into society’s norms. Of course, people are like this everywhere, but I think he felt particularly betrayed because America advertised itself to be different. Ginsberg had such high hopes and they were dashed by greed and poverty. Because of this, he also feels distant, separated from the country he was so excited to be a part of.

I agree with him in some aspect. America claims to be a place of beauty and peace, where we are concerned for others. But as Ginsberg cited in the passage, ‘when will you send your eggs to India’, we really don’t help out that much. We bring more destruction and war much of the time then we do peace.

We are all America. We call make up this country, yet much of the time, we let the flow of society shape us. We’re told we need drugs and medication to be happy, and we listen. We, for the most part, ignore the homeless and those we don’t consider redeemable human beings. We allow them to be forgotten. We build on top of the backs of the blue-collar worker, and don’t give them the credit. We do what we are told we need to do in order to be happy, yet we never achieve it. What is good for one is not good for all.

We rest and judge other countries on how they work. We think that our way is always best. We are not a communistic society, therefore, communism is bad. Individuals will deny thinking this way, yet a lot of the time, we do. When was the last time you gave some money to a panhandler? When was the last time you wrote to someone in prison? When was the last time you thought about the plight of Haiti? We all judge, we all get wrapped up in ourselves. And when we do it as a collective whole, it’s dangerous. We fail to watch each other’s backs, and in our silence, we encourage our own selfish behavior. We become that which we despise.

Those who break those chains of bondage, who snap out of that circular thinking, are condemned insane, sometimes correctly so. And immediately, Americans as a whole begins pushing them to become clones again. “Get on pills! Be normal! Conform!” They attempt to pound them back into the ground, force them into their holes, make them a part of the hive mind again.

If we refuse to ‘give up our obsessions’, our hunts for true freedom, we are shunned and trampled upon like all those who came before us. I agree with Ginsberg. There must be another way to settle this war within ourselves. Or all we ever fought to achieve has been for naught. Wanderingsilverstone 04:01, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Review submission

Please include your user name along with the time stamp (the second to last button on the edit bar). All reviews are due by 5pm on Fridays.

Regarding http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html Yuck! A prime example of why the public school system should teach obsessive people to spend some of their time every day on "my glass is half full" contemplation. Ginsberg should seek a priest capable of explaining the basics of a faith based belief system, review a timeline of human history and acknowledge there is less murder and more justice in America for more people than ever before in history anywhere. After thus fortifying himself with some facts regarding the external universe he might be able to expend some mental energy on solving a few problems instead of immersing himself in negativity and whining about his priveleged mode of existence. user:lazyquasar ~1700 28 Dec 05

Poetry submission

Please include your user name along with the time stamp (the second to last button on the edit bar). All poems are due by 5pm on Fridays they are assigned.

http://americanmohawk.blogspot.com --Noisecontrol 03:01, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Fiction submission

Please include your user name along with the time stamp (the second to last button on the edit bar). All stories are due by 5pm on Fridays they are assigned.

Literature or Writing?

This strikes me not as a Writing course, but as a Literature course focusing on Fiction in general. Is this intended to be a Lit course, or a Writing course? The Jade Knight 10:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Writing a Book Review

Because many of the assignments involve writing reviews, it may be helpful to include a referral to the course Writing a Book Review. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 11:27, 2 July 2019 (UTC)