Poetry and Research – Spring 2015
Poetry
2015 wasn’t a great year for me at uni. I began the poetry module in February which consisted of two separate seminars a week. One on a Thursday with the MA literature students studying American contemporary poets, and the second on a Friday where a small group of creative writing students got the chance to workshop each other’s work.
At the beginning of March I was offered the chance to go out to Bucharest on a European playwriting course with my peers. Unfortunately while out there I managed to break my hip when misplacing a step in the metro. This necessitated me having to stay behind in Romania after the others left for the UK because I needed an operation. It was hard saying goodbye to my peers and being left in a strange country on my own for 24 hours until my husband arrived.
Above: Timetable – The Day I tripped – completed by my friend Sue Bamblett.
In hindsight I should have deferred the Poetry Module as I was unable to walk so couldn’t get down to Falmer to the seminars. But I didn’t defer, instead I struggled on and probably cost myself a good mark. I didn’t receive any lecture notes on the literature/theory side although the creative writing poetry tutor offered critique on my poems.
I missed being with my peers.
This would have been one of my favourite courses had I been able to continue the seminars.
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At the end of September I was able to return to uni – HURRAY!!
Research Module – Grand Parade Brighton – Autumn 2015
Out of all the modules that I completed for the MA, this one had to be the worst. In fact this was the only module that I didn’t love. I particularly hated the literary review and data qualitative analysis but just about coped with methodology.
So much of this course was not designed for creative writers but more for social sciences. I wasn’t alone in my hatred of this module. Thankfully the university listened to student feedback and have now replaced it from this academic year with a compulsory publishing module. I’d loved to have taken that.
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What I enjoyed about attending the weekly research seminars was meeting up with my friends beforehand. I’d meet up with Sue Bamblett, and Liz Eastwood in Brighton around 10:30am at, Lydea, a lovely vegetarian café where we’d drink coffee and chat about our projects, followed by lunch before strolling over to Grand Parade.
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And I suppose if I hadn’t completed the research module I probably wouldn’t have researched Emily Dickinson (my chosen project) which I enjoyed.
Next – Part 4 – Prose Fiction
Patricia M Osborne 