Blogpost #5

1. Theme

   1. The story/theme of my portfolio revolves around the concept that I am inherently capable of range. Of diversity. I think I spend a lot of time worrying that I am the kind of writer who is incapable of adapting to different writing situations, to different kinds of people and places and prompts. I want that not to be true, so I rejected one narrative for many kinds of narrative. I have sadness and introspection, I have humor and logic and love. I have it all in various forms— but in writing this now, I wonder how much of the ‘all of it’ I actually encapsulate, versus how much of the ‘important’ I lose along the way. For example, I plan to include a poem I didn’t actually love when I wrote it two years ago, purely because I know what it means and there is something real to it. This is a rejection of my inital proclivity to only post pieces that I thought were among my best, in favor of showcasing all the kinds of pieces I can produce. The importance of writing outweighing my desire to only write beatuiful nothings. I also plan to include a geoduck research proposal because I can, and it is major writing, emphasizing the oddities of what the portfolio will encapsulate.

   2. In class discussion, I have decided to categorize my writing under the broad theme of naturalism-- an embracing of natural imagery and metaphor though interlaced with human stories and expression. I frame my writing through the eyes of humanity which I think works best in my most nature-focused writing because it allows the natural imagery to exist relatively unexplained, giving it an air of the wild that seems real to me.

2. Connections

   1. I like natural imagery, to draw in my geoduck proposal piece which is my most difficult connection to make, I just worry that nothing concrete joins the pieces together. There is no inherent theme that I can pick out, so subject matter must be the ‘me’ that exists in each piece. I am the connection point as author, but deciding the extent of that is far more difficult. 

   2. To reiterate: I am already relying heavily on natural imagery to aid the subject matter I write about and I hope to emphasize the natural names that I have given each piece. Perhaps lean on the intersection between the personal and the wild, Dr. Colby seemed to really enjoy that aspect of my writing and such. 

3. Professional aspect

   1. I have no clear plan to pursue writing in terms of a career as of yet, but as writing has become a very important part of my life I also have no plans to ignore it post-grad. My portfolio exists to showcase the growth of my technical writing skills, the extent of my creative expression, and as a personal testiment to a specific kind of bravery and vulnerability that I would otherwise avoid at all costs. In these ways, my portfolio is a testament to many professional skills that I have developed through writing, though not necessarily for professional writing itself. That being said, I have not ruled out the possibility that I will continue to write somewhat casually, potentially publishing locally for practice and accountability-- I believe it is the kind of creative outlet that works well for my brain.

4. Academic aspect

   1. The writing minor is most obviously a developmental asset for academic writing. It encourages thinking critically about the aspects of writing that are most often taken for granted such as form, context, history, and rhetorical weight. The texts I read throughout my time at DU have centered diverse voices (ex. Frank O'Hara, Sara Borjas, Octavia Butler, Walter Ong and others) in terms of their identities, subject choices, and perspectives on the commonly accepted ethos of writing as a discipline. Prior to engaging with the writing minor more intentionally, I viewed writing as either beautiful and artistic or a vehicle for explaining information. But there is more depth to writing when it is art, and there is more impact in the form of writing when it is informational.