[New-Poetry] http://www.thetrenchcoat.com/archives/1891-Cho-Seung-Huis-creative-writing.html

[Anny Ballardini]

Re: PulitzerI had read it before, as a matter of fact I have to write about it, and I thank Skip Fox for his reading. There is as a matter of fact something disturbing in this writing. What is it? 

The piece is quite harsh, not for the violence to which unluckily we are accustomed, but for the particular kind of violence and for the way it is expressed. The 13 year old son, John, is mean. His telling heavy lies to his mother, Sue, against her new husband, Richard McBeef, is triggered not by the emotional loss of his father, nor by an attachment to his mother, but by the mere fact that his step-father does not earn enough! Besides this, the story is not well written. 

 

If I remember right, I read on The New York Times that at the beginning of the writing class he was taking, instead of writing his name he put a question mark. We have to add to this fact that he did not answer questions, never spoke with anybody. The same students were quite careful in reviewing his work because they were scared.



I think that Nikki Giovanni was therefore entitled to be significantly disturbed.  

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Skip Fox 
  To: 'NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views' 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 9:07 PM
  Subject: [New-Poetry] http://www.thetrenchcoat.com/archives/1891-Cho-Seung-Huis-creative-writing.html


  A student told me that Cho Seung-Hui's creative writing is on the net (link below).  I'm not trying to be morbid by looking at this, but just trying to see if I could have seen signs of the level of his disturbance. I don't think I could have. Here's a short and twisted little play he wrote. The actions are at times inexplicable (when not exaggerated), the actions are violent, the relationships are twisted, and the name (McBeef) is disturbing, but I cannot honestly say I would have notified the authorities if I would have seen this in an early creative writing class (1st or 2nd undergraduate level).



  http://www.thetrenchcoat.com/archives/1891-Cho-Seung-Huis-creative-writing.html



  Perhaps an inappropriate topic. Perhaps an important one, or one that is important in terms of a larger issue (trying to pick out this type of disturbance or not being able to).



  If Nikki Giovanni felt he was significantly disturbed on the basis of this, I applaud her human intelligence as well as on her poetry.







------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  New-Poetry mailing list
  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20070418/9ba253be/attachment.html