Senior Writing Portfolio Students
Millikin University

Alyssa Owens

biography

Alyssa Owens was born January 4, 1985 in Indianapolis, IN with an immediate love of books. Her mother found her name in a novel that she was reading towards the end of her pregnancy, and from then on she shared a love of reading and writing with her mom. Alyssa is the oldest of seven, and has two step sisters who live in Georgia. Her family spans the United States from Minnesota to Texas.

Alyssa will be graduating in May of 2007 with a Bachelor Degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. After college she would love to find a job that combines her love of books and writing without actually writing the books herself, but so far that is proving difficult. She would also love to one day have season tickets for the St. Louis Cardinals and a bank account that can afford her shoe habit and lend her the option for traveling the world.

writing theory

I have always looked at other writers as though they had a gift, and even though I have always considered myself a writer I have never thought that I have a gift. Many people look at writers and think that it just comes naturally. I may be able to scribble out a poem fairly quickly, but in order for it to be any good, I have to work at it. Revision is something that I have always struggled with. I am a fairly lackadaisical writer. I get inspired at random times, write something short and to the point and usually leave it alone. Every once in a while I will write something that I really like, but more often than not it is just an outburst of emotion left in the moment. But that’s why I have such a love for writing. I can put down on paper what I am feeling and move on with my life, and when I go back to those poems I have a chronology of what was going on in my life when I wrote them.

As a senior looking back on my work for the last three years I have come to appreciate where I am and what I have come from. Writing will always be a journey for me. It will be a journey of self expression, and self reflection. All I can hope is that my journey continues to change and progress to something greater. I have learned that even though I often leave my poetry unrevised, a piece of writing can never really be finished. I can always take it a step further, and it is that sense of possibility that keeps me writing.

writing sample

This poem was part of my final submission for my Creative Non Fiction class that I took with Dr. Frech in the fall of my junior year. I like this poem because it creates a mood. It is also representative of the kind of poetry that I write. It is short and to the point, and what I have termed “fluffy.”   I was playing with word placement in this poem for the first time so it is also representative of where I was at in terms of my progress.

Whispers

Soft moonlight
Pouring rain
The only two in
The world

She stares into
His soul
Wondering what
It holds
Through those
Deep blue
Eyes she sees
Her own soul

The night sky
S
   A
      G
          S
With weight
Of whispered
Promises and
Dreams of
Blissful
Happiness