Posts tagged: Poetry

Highlights from the Lit Studies Alumni Panel

On February 18th, 2022, Professor Jennifer Firestone welcomed back five Lit Studies alums—Jaye Elizabeth Elijah, Hilina Da Costa Gomez, Shulokhana Khan, Colin Marston, and...   Read More

Fall 2021 Literary Studies Capstone Readings – Dec. 16

Thursday, December 16, 2021 6:00PM to 7:30PM (EST) The Literary Studies department is proud to present readings by graduating seniors hosted by Assistant Professor of Writing, Wendy Xu. Students will read from their final...   Read More

Check out photos from the Eleven and a Half launch party!

Last Thursday, the student-led publication Eleven and a Half held its annual launch party, celebrating the latest edition of art, writing, poetry, and design...   Read More

Call for Submissions – Collision Literary Magazine

Collision is currently open for submissions of undergraduate fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art! By submitting to the annual magazine, students will be considered for...   Read More

2021 Breakout! Writers Prize for Epiphany

Submissions are now open for the 2021 Breakout! Writers Prize for undergraduate and graduate prose and poetry writers. The prize consists of $1000 cash...   Read More

Jennifer Firestone Publishes New Book of Poetry Titled “Story”

Eugene Lang’s very own Jennifer Firestone, Associate Professor and author, has released a book of poetry titled Story. “Story is a brilliant antidote to closure...   Read More

Eugene Lang’s very own Jennifer Firestone, Associate Professor and author, has released a book of poetry titled Story.

Story is a brilliant antidote to closure and the tyranny of narrative.” 

-Brenda Coultas

There is a Story at a beach. There is a couple evolving and devolving inside a new fangled form of the couplet. There is the landscape: the ocean, sand, and sun that language flails in trying to recreate. “The beach reached for them but slipped. / The beach shells and sound. / The beach the one syllable until soft.” Story is a cryptic film, an old photograph, a mystery, where narrative, memory, truth, and trauma are interrogated, where creditability slips much like the language that is storytelling. Where, “what is the truth but what we say.”

To find out more and buy the book, visit: https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/story/

© 2015 Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. Website by POTG Design.

On February 18th, 2022, Professor Jennifer Firestone welcomed back five Lit Studies alums—Jaye Elizabeth Elijah, Hilina Da Costa Gomez, Shulokhana Khan, Colin Marston, and Jasveen Kaur S.—to share their thoughts on life after college and the creative ways that their Literary Studies degrees propelled them onto their current personal and professional paths. 

You can watch the entire video here or read the transcript here

Their paths have all differed greatly, ranging from publishing to journalism school, from an MFA in Poetry and to work in Film Production. They all agree that the breadth and interdisciplinary focus of classes offered by Lang’s Literary Studies department were incredibly formative. 

  • “There were all these opportunities I had to enhance my facilitation skills, my teaching skills, and think about how I would want to be more equitable when it comes to teaching.” —Jasveen Kaur S.

  • “No experience is ever wasted. Within all the classes that you take there is really always something to be mined… Anything that you’re doing is going to help you move on to the next thing.”—Shulokhana Khan

The panelists gave concrete, practical advice on what to look for when applying to jobs and internships, without sugar-coating the reality of the creative job market.

  • When applying to internships, “be clear-sighted about your objectives and also hold them accountable. They should pay interns. The system is exploitative and if it’s not for academic credit, get paid.”—Colin Marston

  • “Don’t be afraid to leave, as well, if you feel like you’re being mistreated… The right people will understand why you left.”—Hilina Da Costa Gomez

Overall, the panelists helped set clear, honest expectations of life after college: it’s hard and competitive. But the tools they acquired from their many experiences in Lit Studies and The New School at large have helped them remain flexible and creative in their pursuits.

  • “There’s a lot of possibility and I think there’s a real emphasis on having a book, or having the most beautiful idyllic publishing job, or going straight into a program right after graduation, and none of that is required… don’t get caught up in the myth of ‘prodigy’ and needing to have it all figured out. So I would say let yourself fail and fail hard and it’ll come together eventually.”  —Jaye Elizabeth Elijah

  • “The jobs that I got look pretty neat on paper, but there are a lot of rejections in between, a lot of ‘I don’t know what I’m doing!’ ‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to get anything!’”—Shulokhana Khan