This is a collection of poetry and prose written and revised throughout the semester. I started writing poetry for an English class back in 8th grade. Ever since then, I liked writing poetry. It gave me a way to express my ideas, without restrictions and requirements of form, proper sentences and syntax, and overall formality. During my four years in high school, I did not write much poetry. I had a lot of ideas, but writing them down in a poem was not a high priority at the time. When I came to college, priorities changed once again and I was in a new atmosphere. As time passed, I started to write down my ideas in the form of poetry. Since college started, I have written and revised five poems in my spare time. This proved itself to be a good creative outlet from the usual grind of my computer science studies. I wanted to learn more about creative writing, so I decided to take English 294. Throughout this semester, I have written and revised many poems, in and out of class. Writing poetry was now a challenge for me rather than a hobby. It was a good experience to learn the different popular forms of poetry, and I believe those various forms helped me to effectively communicate my ideas.

The second part of the course, writing fiction stories, also proved to be a challenge. My instinct when I started my first story for the class was to write in first person, about events that happened to me, with added fictional elements. The second story, A Phone Call to End the Day, has almost no relation to my personal life, but contains ideas of a typical stressful office setting that I have encountered in the past. For both of these fiction stories, I sometimes found it difficult to end the story. In fact, the first story seems unfinished. I have found it difficult to finish because I am not sure where I want to finish. Since it is based on my life, I am not sure where I want to end.

After this semester, I plan on taking English 392, an additional creative writing course with emphasis on poetry alone. While I am a Computer Science student, I still hope to gain personal satisfaction through writing poetry. Although I can accomplish this without taking the class, I feel I have been compelled and encouraged to write and revise more because of the support from the professor and classmates. I do not foresee creative writing as a primary function in my life, but I do believe I will continue to write in the future, after I get out of work for the day, or whenever I feel like writing.