The OWU English Department Blog
The reason I had never watched Sofia Coppolaās Lost in Translation is excruciatingly ironic: in its translation to my first language, Portuguese, the movieās title was just plain boring. āEncounters and mismatchesā (my closest translation of a bad translation) never really caught my eye. But, mostly because of quarantine boredom, I came across it on a nightly Netflix scroll and didnāt see a good reason not to click on it.…
I want more. I want to be running around, gallivanting around the world. I want to be sitting in a cafe, on the street, with thousands of people passing by. Moving. Shuffling. Riding Around. I want to use my little Dutch, even if it makes the locals laugh. I want to drink wine in the streets of Paris as my boyfriend meets me for the long weekend.…
Earlier this month, I hiked 8+ miles by myself through the Cleveland MetroParks. I had only planned on taking one trail, but was enjoying myself so much that I took another connecting route and made a longer loop back to where I had parked my car at the trailhead. It was just before peak color for the season, and between the colorful leaves, fresh autumn air, and smell of the outdoors, I felt far more refreshed than I had felt in a long time.…
The Rocky Mountains,
You are gripping in the way your flowers taste
and your wind hits.Ā
Your lush forests obtain a darkness
that can only be tamed by the melting sun.Ā
You are haunting as the whispers from the trees
Ā transcend to a birds song.
They tell me you are vast and dangerous
Ā and I believe them for I have seen your harsh nature,
Ā but where else could my song be sung the loudest.…
An aluminum vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air–this is what the word plane used to mean to me. I thought about them when one flew above me in the blue summer sky, a tiny greyish shape that inevitably leads anyone with a fertile imagination to indulge in a thousand theories about who the strangers in the sky are, where are they coming from and where they are going, and why it is I will never meet them.…
I canāt tell you the first time I saw one. At age 11, I had no idea what they were, but I had been living among them for years. They showed themselves in a variety of forms and had slowly begun to take over my world. But it was not until I had started middle school that I learned they had a nameā¦ memes.…
If I had to recommend something that every English major should do before they graduate it would be to go on a literary pilgrimage. My mother read me the first Harry Potter book when I was in fifth grade and I have loved the books and movies ever since. Last year I went to London with my mom and I turned a mother-daughter trip into a hunt for Harry Potter book and film sites.…
Dear Mystery Novels,
I have missed you so much since our last meeting. My longing to be reunited with you only grows stronger each day, and I often find myself looking to our past for solace. It feels like only yesterday that I first laid eyes on you.Ā
You appeared to me in the form of Encyclopedia Brown, and it was love at first clue.…
As a writing exercise, I was once told to pick someone in the room and describe them ā what they wore, what they looked like, how they spoke, how they moved Ā ā and then to invent a āwhyā for each observation. Why is he wearing that shirt? Because he keeps forgetting to do laundry and this was the last shirt that didnāt smell rancid.…
Thereās no shortage of seriousness in the modern landscape of creative nonfiction. Week after week, The New York Timesā Bestsellers List exalts narratives exploring the horrors of our world: Ta-Nehisi Coatesās Between the World and Me at 84 weeks on the list, Jeannette Wallsās The Glass Castle at 436 weeks on the list, and Bryan Stevensonās Just Mercy at 119 weeks on the list, to name a few.…