Anthony's Experience in Writing Minor and Poetry

The following is an computer-generated summary of the video transcript.

Hi, my name is Anthony Barusso and I'm here to tell you a little bit about my past experience as a writing minor at the College of Staten Island. Currently I'm a PhD candidate at florida State University, where I serve as a poetry editor of the Southeast Review and co host the Jerome Stern Distinguished Writers series. My poems have been published in a number of acclaimed literary magazines which include salads, the journal spillway, the Florida review and Beloit Poetry journal where my piece diagnosis thelonious monk was selected by Pulitzer prize winner Natasha Truth Away as a finalist for the Adrian ritual. I've also interviewed distinguished writers like Billy Collins and Robert Wrigley when I spent some time as an associate editor for Booth Journal, pivotal in my journey as a writer was the undergraduate education that I received at a college of unlike a lot of graduate school peers, I didn't get my bachelor's in creative writing or literature, but in biology, Creative writing was my minor though, I had always felt passionate about writing a career in it. I was told by many supposedly level headed people was impractical. A waste of time. Biology. I said to myself, will be my main pursuit and writing will be a kind of side hustle hobby, a way to decompress from the sea. This work of the sciences and it was a great change of pace for me after spending most of the week thinking about cell organelles, chemical formulas and physiological pathways. It was always a pleasure to turn to language as a means of self expression, to think about who I was and how the very words I used helped to shape that person. I also found that learning to write with clarity and concision was a wonderful supplement to my scientific education in lab reports, research essays and grant applications. The scrutiny I'd invested in language gave me a leg up on many of my science minded peers for whom writing was often something far and difficult. If I had gone on to be an evolutionary biologist as I had originally planned, I think my minor in writing would have still been surprisingly helpful as things turned out. However, biology for me would be bested by my love for writing. In large part, this was due to taking dr Marvin's poetry workshop. At this point in my academic career, I was just one class away from a writing minor, but all the classes I had wanted to take one on short stories, another on the coming of age narrative had filled up. There was no room in them. Poetry workshop had space, but honestly, I was a little bit tentative to enroll in it, since I associated the genre with either esoteric riddles or in some cases schmaltzy emotional outpourings. I didn't know if it was the space for me. Then again, I said at least, poems are pretty short. So how bad could this class B this turned out to be a great decision to just go ahead with poetry. Immediately, I was hooked by Dr Marvin's enthusiasm and expertise in the subject. She showed our class the linguistic, symbolic and rhythmic textures of poems and how an interplay of emotion and logic can lead to language that carries a unique potency. I also learned that poetry could be transgressive, it could cuss, it could be sexy, loud, argumentative, subversive and wild. It could like Joshua Beckman's poem, the karate chop of love, which we read in one of our first class is sing the beauty of your handsome drugs, your frozen fingernails and that barrel of fried chicken. These realizations dazzled me. I didn't realize that this kind of language was available in poetry that it belonged there and when I went on to take to him. But jesse's poetry workshop the following, my love for poetry deepened and intensified. It became clear to me that writing was no longer something that could be ignored or made to play second fiddle. This is why if you feel any inclination toward writing, I can't recommend the College of Staten Island's program any higher. It will steep you in a passion for words and enlighten you to new linguistic possibilities. Whether you are a biology major and education major or an aspiring poet atCSI you will find your language empowered like it has never been before. Thank you.