Samantha Exstance-a creative journey in style.

Samantha Exstance is an amazing writer. She's also very nice, which is a great added bonus.

We sat down and looked over a few of her pieces, which were arranged so carefully.

Some of her poems were purely stream of consciousness. Others were meticulosly arranged, almost like a word puzzle. You could read them in a variety of ways, all which changed the meaning of the poetry.

It was nice to sit down and talk to her, and I heard most of her story, starting with creating an anthology of all of her poetry when she was around 5 years old.

I find it odd how poetry changes once you meet the person who wrote it. Now you have a face, and a voice, that reads the poetry as you do. I identify her works now with the short blonde hair and glasses.

I haven't yet decided if I think this is a good thing, a bad thing, or neither.

Recitatif by Toni Morrison

Recitatif is a very interesting story.

It wasn't until I was about halfway though that I caught on that Morrison never indicated which girl was white and which was black.

It's an interesting way to call people out on their prejudices: She makes us see it in ourselves rather than telling us.

It calls into question why we have the stereotypes that we do.

Why are a person's actions representative of their race rather than their individual personality?

I think what I took away from Recitatif is that we shouldnt accept our judgements as truth, but constantly question them.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Honestly, while this was a great play, it just made me angry.

I sort of wish there was something to be done about it, right now, because by the time I finished reading it I was ready to take action.

I suppose that's a sign of good work.

The way that everyone played their little role and ignored the actual world-- even ignored rape. It just infuriated me.

It also made me think:
I'm sure a lot has changed since then, but still do we ignore things just because it is convenient?

Do we not believe things because we "just can't," like Stella?

This brought about some major self-evaluation for me.