Andrew Minott

Creative Writing Roundtable Students / Andrew Minott Millikin University
Andrew Minott
My first idea for a project for this class was to do a set of vocal poetry, experimenting with the nuances that are exclusive to the voice as opposed to the printed page. Unfortunately, the work that would be required for a project like this, including writing of material I've never written, creating recordings of my work and arrange for musical accompaniment. Basically, too ambitious for a one-credit class with all the other work I have going on. So, my second idea, the one I'm more inclined to do, is a small poetry/writing chapbook centered around my ongoing struggle with religion and spirituality... not a 'conflict' per se, because I think that's been gone over more times that I can image... Anyway, I plan on having the pieces in the book utilize a vocabulary not often seen anymore, archaic words that have a sort of "religiousness" attached to them, because i find words like that to be fascinating. For my writing sample, I think I'll read the poem I read at the senior reading, since only one other person in the class was there... It's also one of things I've written that I'm most proud of that wouldn't take me 15 minutes to read... which is important
Remember when you said ‘la la la’, and I said that was my favorite song, for ever and never, and you said you hated the smell of aqua velva and I said good because I’d never buy that swill, and I wish I never left you and I wish I never loved you, and we gave hubris a name, and you realized that the colors of your flag are also the colors of a beaten corpse, and you kept a journal of all your failings and it was a page longer than the journal of all your success because the pen ran out of ink, and another awkward moment passes, and ‘goodbye’ is written backwards on the bathroom mirror, and good ol’ hank reminded us that “the southwest is full of sadness”, and the folk singers lost their fingertips to the centuries of steel strings and muzzle-loaded love letters, and we cherished every minute of our empty picture frames, and we agreed that we hated the word “success” almost as much as we hated the word “hate”. almost as much as we hated each other.

© 2005 Randy Brooks • last updated: January 27, 2005 all rights returned to author upon publication