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Life & Arts

Creative writing graduate students showcase work

by KELSIE HAHN
The Daily Cougar

The first-year graduate students in the UH Creative Writing Department showed off their literary skills to a packed house Wednesday night at The Honors College Commons, balancing heavy themes of violence and grief with light-hearted imaginings and jibes at their own work.

Poet Russel Swensen, who is beginning his first year after switching from fiction to poetry, explained that the brevity of his work stems from people telling him to "shut up."

"I have been usefully discouraged, and we should all be so lucky," he said. 

Swensen brought the very latest of his work, including a poem about an opossum titled "Afterwards" that was written the night before and inspired by a spooky Halloween atmosphere.

Hayan Charara, who has published two poetry books, drew on his Arab roots to evoke powerful images, including a poem describing the robbing of an Arab-owned grocery in the United States and one called "Lucy" describing the loss of a family's pets -- and so much more -- in the bomb-ravaged city of Bint Jbail, Lebanon. 

Following the reading, Charara said his poetry helps present a facet of an often misunderstood and misrepresented culture.

"I would argue most of the depictions (of Arabs) are pretty negative. This is an opportunity to come in and say, ‘This is not the way things are,'" he said. "I can't think it's ever a bad thing to have more voices, and I'm certainly not the only one."

Charara said his work is not limited to cultural topics, however.

"I think it's worthwhile, but it's also not the only thing that I do," he said.

Stacey Higdon drew heavily from her childhood in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in her poetry and said many of the images in her work grew from childhood impressions such as searching for Tyrannosaurus rex bones in the neighborhood.

Higdon said the fact that much of her poetry is brief isn't a problem.

"I'd like to think there's a lot behind it," she said.

The sole fiction reader, Coert Voorhees, read an excerpt from his story "Magic Hour," which describes a rapidly failing school field trip to Los Angeles in which a high school teacher must deal with a vengeful former boss, irresponsible students and his own mistakes.

Voorhees said he tries to draw some of the characteristics of poetry into his prose style. 

"I try to think, how can I say as much as possible in as few words (as possible)?'" he said.

Although getting into creative writing can seem a daunting task, Charara said young writers should not worry about "making it big."

"It's not a race," he said. "We've got our whole lives to just work on our writing."

Wednesday's reading was the third in UH's 2006-07 Poetry & Prose series, which will resume in the spring. 

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