IT’S DONE!!!! I’m on the fence between being excited and sad. I loved my first semester of grad school! And I’m so excited for what’s to come!

So, the chapbook… It is AMAZING! I love how it turned out and I’m happy we could get it done! I knew we would. I really liked working on something this creative, especially during a time in the school year that is known to be chaotic.

Seeing this chapbook go from an idea to a physical book was one of the best things I’ve experienced. I love seeing an idea go from an idea to a realized thing, especially when it’s something you can hold in the end.

The last couple of days working on the chapbook were crunch time days. Our group chat was going off with trying to get everything done, figuring out what time we could work, and then with pictures of the final product.

I’m so proud of it and the work we all did to get it to where it is.

The Chapbook is done! Well, mine that is, and the “Master Copy” that is intended for Dr. Zamora. I’m pretty satisfied with the end result, and in comparing mine to what I’ve seen from the finished and unfinished “copies” it looks like each of ours will differ quite a bit. That is not to say that there is pure chaos on-display here, as similarities in our contributions and selective stylistic leanings will bleed through from page-to-page, from book-to-book. 

My personal favorite page is the “An Ode to Ye” page, as it showcases a poem that I made, in this very course, quite quickly. Despite my spending about two minutes on the poem I really like it, and to showcase the inspiration for this entire blog (the very obvious reference is in the title, after all) accompanied with a little pop-up gimmick is pretty cool.

Anyway, to anyone that read (and perhaps even enjoyed) my blog posts throughout this semester, thank you! I enjoyed writing them.

Until another time possibly next, 

    Enjoy!

What weeks. We finished our chapbook, wrote, painted, glued, used tape, used our cell phones as hammers, damaged a few needles and, above all, had fun and learned more about ourselves.

I must confess that I was afraid to start graduate school, to be in a different place, to get out of my comfort zone, but I am grateful to have done so and I thank Brandon, Chelsea, Kathryn, Jasmine and Dr. Zamora for inspiring and motivating me to move forward.

This chapbook is one of a kind, we have poems, acrostics, songs, Kanye and a lot of talent to show. I learned many things in the creation of this book, but most importantly the love we each have for writing and the creativity that lives within us. I finished this project and the semester with more confidence in myself, with a new and better voice, with magnificent colleagues and with more desire to write.

Chapbook process

We are a madness, chaos and wonder of a group. I changed a little the idea that I wanted to convey in my part of the chapbook, so I let myself be carried away by the music and I locked myself in poetry, I wrote with my heart in my hand, like the waves of the sea and I let myself be carried away by the wind. I made a poem of 4 parts, each according to the division of a cello concert. I chose a photo I took many years ago showing the first page of One Hundred Years of Solitude, to represent my love for literature, respect for magical realism and bring my culture into the chapbook. Also, I chose a frailejón, because this type of tree only grows in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, it is something unique and I wanted to represent the only thing that our voices are.