The imperfect, complicated page: writing and writers at Monmouth

Early spring afternoon beneath a tree by the library — a grackle, countless sparrows and a pair of cardinals chatter April into blossom — and the student writer asks, “Is this paper perfect? I want it to be perfect.”

The cardinals answer one another. I smile across the picnic table. “No. Not perfect.”

The writer flares a fusion of side-eye and concern, surprised, maybe, at imperfection or, more likely, not surprised a bit as yet another instructor confirms her feeling – writing is impossible.

I tap my pen on the page, “But it’s good; you’re getting better at this.” reading at the end of the semester.

In the fall of 2013, I came to Monmouth College to do exactly this – to profess writing and literature, to bear witness to the ways human beings live in language, and to help others make their way as writers and readers, even (and especially) those students reluctant to think of themselves this way. I also came to write my own poems and to nurture creative writers.

When I arrived, I understood that I’d entered a rich and thriving tradition of Monmouth students, faculty, staff and alumni more than eager to understand themselves as writers, people making their varied paths through many genres – fiction, journalism, plays, academic monographs, peer-reviewed scholarship, curriculum, screenplays, digital content, biographies, children’s literature, creative nonfiction and professional writing, among others. The question: how to cultivate and extend this tradition of writing at Monmouth?

Like the students featured earlier in this magazine, some of these writers move on to advanced creative writing courses in narrative, creative nonfiction, world building and poetry. Directly from these courses, students (and some faculty and staff) have begun work that has gone on to be published or to gain them entry into graduate study in prestigious creative writing programs.

At least once a year, we read work by an author who visits campus and interacts with us in and out of the classroom, expanding our world of imaginative writing by bringing the wider world to campus. Over the past 10 years more than two dozen poets, fiction writers, memoirists, playwrights, screenwriters and editors have come to campus to conduct student workshops, to be interviewed by students and faculty, and to give public readings as part of the Writers@Monmouth series, in cooperation with others on campus, like the Champion Miller Center for Student Equity, Inclusion and Community.

DAVID WRIGHT

Outside the classroom, students work in editorial roles for the campus newspaper, Courier, COIL (the College’s literary arts magazine) and for our award-winning Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research, a publication with a national and international scope. Many of our students also collaborate with the art, theatre and music departments, combining their literary energies with that of other artists in this community.

In first-year composition courses, students develop a replicable writing practice they can adapt to any writing situation, learning the skills of drafting and revising informed arguments and reflections. Like the student at the picnic table, they succeed when they move beyond a need for a perfect grade and towards a focus on the practice of writing. Sure, ChatGPT can generate the surface of an adequate document, but it can’t be a better human because it has grappled with a complex idea, or reflected meaningfully on a human life, and brought this insight into language. As accomplished novelist and Monmouth graduate Melissa Scholes Young ’97 describes it: “We all deserve to be complicated on the page.”

Nurturing creative writers happens both within and outside of the classroom. In addition to English majors, students from many disciplines generate poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction in “ENGL 210: Creative Writing.” They read historic and contemporary work and, almost always, find voices that challenge and stimulate their own imaginative writing, which they share as part of a public

During my first several years at Monmouth, I met weekly with a rotating group of faculty from Spanish, educational studies, history and political science, simply to sit in a room for 90 minutes and write together, saying very little and filling the room with the clicking of keyboards and the scratching of pens. Out of those sessions came poems, essays, scholarship and friendships. Ultimately, it’s this sense of working in proximity to one another that helps writers and writing to thrive at Monmouth.

For too many, writing on college campuses often seems to be a mere blur of all-night typing and caffeine and the temptation to plagiarize. But the stories in this issue document Monmouth writers, both past and present, and the myriad, imperfect ways they write to discover, learn, clarify, question, make beauty and connect with one another through language, something they began to learn and practice on this campus, expanding their worlds and finding themselves on the complicated page.

David Wright is associate professor of English and the author of several poetry collections including Local Talent (Purple Flag/Virtual Artist’s Collective, 2019).

Your Monmouth years were influential in myriad ways. You may have met lifelong friends or a lifelong partner. You may have discovered a hidden talent or passion, thanks to an inspirational professor. Introduce a young person to the same Monmouth experience. Take the first step by sharing the name of a young person who you believe could benefit from a Monmouth education.