Reed Haight - "You See the World"

As I sat down to do this project I thought to myself, What is the most important thing I have learned this year? I considered all of the novels and short stories and essays we read, all of the lectures and video clips and movies we watched and every discussion we had. It hit me that, although we didn’t really explicitly discuss it, self-love was at the core of everything, typically, it was lacking.

In all three novels, the characters felt that they were unworthy unless someone was in love with them. Each character was incapable of generating that deep level of love for themselves and, thus, none of their love was what Sternberg would call “consummate love,” (if you recall from my research paper last semester). Instead, any love that the characters managed to get at was more along the lines of desire and there was always a sense of emptiness within them.

Thinking about all of this, I started considering what I have gone through in the few years and, especially, what I have learned from all of it. Although it has been a difficult year for me, I have come out of it much stronger than I was going in. So, I asked myself why? What has changed within me that made all of those terrible things in my past suddenly seem bearable when they were not a year ago? The answer could not have been clearer: self-love.

I had gone from loathing myself and criticizing every little thing I did, allowing the perfectionist in me free reign, to working my way towards mental and emotional peace. I have begun truly appreciating everything within myself, the flaws, the strengths, the weaknesses, everything. Through this self-love, I have found such serene peace and happiness that I am almost always bursting with it! Although there is still a long way to go on my journey within self-love, I have made immense progress and it has changed my life.

Bringing this back to the class, I chose to write a poem about this self-love (the woman in the poem representing myself), because earlier in the year, although I hate to admit it, I was more like the characters in those books. Although I wouldn’t have gone nearly as far as any of them did in the search for fulfillment through another and I was far more aware of the impossibility of another fulfilling me, I was certainly relying on outside sources to show me my own worthiness. Now, though, I have found that I am not only deserving of love, both inside and out, but I am love.

Rebecca Verosloff

            I have been going through a lot of change in my life. With change comes ways to see things differently, to be able to look at a situation from a different side. For the last seven years I’ve been in a relationship, recently we both decided that it was time to see the world from a different, single perspective. It is true that you never really know what something is going to be like until you are there. Being single is one of those things for me. I had all of these expectations of what my new life was going to bring me. I have to admit that very few of those expectations were even remotely close to the reality that ensued. This is why I decided to make this cartoon for my visual project about love and desire.

            I chose to make a cartoon of my life. I broke my life into certain scenarios that became prevalent in my newly single life. These scenarios were: single life, college life, partying, and after sex. These cartoons are nothing less than the reality that occurred, the hopeful expectations followed by the over scrutinized reality. The first window hold the expectations that I’d held before the setting occurred of how I would think and feel while the second window held the cynical and almost depressing realities that occurred as I lived through them.

            This project was an opportunity to open myself up and reflect on how I have developed these expectations. By making it, it has helped me to understand how much the media actually influences me. I hope that this cartoon could also help others to understand themselves better so that we can become more aware of our expectations and be able to formulate more realistic expectations.

Hannah Crosby

Who should have the power to dictate who loves who? “Love Knows No Limits” is the title of my presentation because no matter how you identify yourself your relationship should never be forbidden. I’ve grown to be a passionate supporter of same sex couples and encourage all those who love the same sex to embrace who they are. Same sex couples are entitled to a happy love life.

Entering the University of Hartford has challenged my previous knowledge with diversity. I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire and did not have the opportunity to experience the wealth of diversity I have had here. I have met many people who are in same sex relationships and I find it so rejuvenating. Their perseverance to fight through the struggles of being openly gay is incredible. When I find relationships I have been in struggling or hard to bear I have to remember that at least I still have the ability to walk out in public holding my significant other’s hand.

“Love Knows No Limits” is a powerful statement giving all people the opportunity to love. Knowing no limit in love is not only representative of same sex couples, but heterosexual couples as well. I decided for my visual project to write a poem and display some pictures that are meaningful to me. One of the men in the wedding photographs is a supervisor of mine that I admire tremendously and it was awesome he allowed me to display his special day. Having the enthusiasm to love who you are no matter whom you love is inspiring and my supervisor embodies every bit of that quality.

I decided to write a cento which is a poem composed of previously written works of art. I wrote it from the perspective of a homosexual. This was difficult to immerse myself into another perspective that I am not accustomed too, but it helped me understand the difficulties that a homosexual would face expressing how they feel to the world. In my opinion, people should challenge their beliefs and do something similar to writing this poem because it has made me more aware and understanding than I already was. I have a very open heart and mind to same sex couples.

Additionally, in my presentation I posted a map of the nation that highlights the different supporting laws of same sex partnerships, unions, and marriages. I find this helpful to understand how much of our country still does not recognize same sex marriage. I do believe that our nation is moving forward in changing laws to make same sex marriage recognized and legalized nationwide.

Lastly, I asked a few people that I know who are in a same sex relationship or marriage to share their “coming out” story. “Coming out” is when the individual expresses his or her sexual orientation to others. This process is challenging because people are not always accepting of others. I feel really passionate about sharing my voice to help others to have the sexual and intimate freedom that they deserve and desire. 

Catherine Brennan

Stephanie Lynch

Between the novels, short stories and poetry we have read, I have learned so much. The lecture series has provided further knowledge as well as a deeper analysis by the authors or presenters. Although there already exists a common theme among their topics, love and desire, I have gotten much more out of them that what the name reveals. The most important thing I have taken away from this year -long seminar is the realization of the various forms love can take. Growing up in a destructive environment, I always believed my broken family was wrong or bad because it wasn’t the picturesque family I saw on TV and in magazines. However, all of the knowledge I have gained since last September has caused me to think otherwise. Love does not have to exist in the way society presents it to us. Love can exist wherever we want with whomever we want. As professor Freund said, all things are interpreted differently by different people, which is why symbols were frowned upon in earlier times. No single symbol could encompass the entire meaning of something such as love. In the poems of Steve Almond we saw many different kinds of love. We saw an imperfect and fleeting summer love, just there to pass the time because that is all they wanted out of it at the time. We also saw very different side of love and vulnerability often unspoken or unheard of. His poems as well as his analysis come to show us that there is nothing to be ashamed of. We love what we love and desire what we desire. We cannot help it, so why fight it? In the movie before sunset, we see both characters indulging in 24 hours of loving affairs that they both know must end very soon. In that situation their version of love just happened to be short lived. Lucy Brown taught us about the chemical reasons why we desire one another or hold on to one another. Love is an emotion encompassing all areas of the body and mind. We cannot fight what we love and should not be ashamed, judge ourselves or judge others for what we cannot control. I have found myself appreciating the love in my life and loving relationships where I used to question them. I am so lucky to have people who love me, I shouldn’t be spending time analyzing them or their faults. If love presents itself in your life, just dive in!

Kelly DeSalvatore - "Buying Love"

Link to project:

BUYING LOVE

Sarah Lawes - "September of 1989"

There were many aspects of the poem that were inspired not only by the poem “I Go Back to May 1937” but also by many lectures in the class.  The poem “I Go Back to May 1937” is what gave me the initial idea of writing about my parents and their divorce, but the themes within my poem were inspired mainly by three lectures.

The first lecture, which was about divorce and dating after divorce, was what began my thought process on the poem.  It is much harder for divorcees to get back into the dating world because of different types of baggage such as: children, exes, and trust and emotional issues.  Because I have watched my mother try to get back into the dating scene since my parent’s divorce, I could relate to this lecture.  Once I began thinking about my mother in this new dating scene, it led me to think about her divorce and how I felt about it.  I never really knew how I felt about it, but other lectures gave me more insight into love, which helped he have more understanding.

When I had to think about how I felt about my parent’s divorce when writing the poem, I constantly went back to the question that Garren Small asked: Does love conquer all?  Therefore, the poem plays off of my answer to that question.  In the poem, I essentially say to answer that question that love does not necessarily prevail all the time, which is why people should enjoy it while they can. 

Another lecture that had a major influence on my poem is Lucy Brown’s lecture.  In her lecture, she discussed love at first sight and the early stage of intense romantic love.  During this stage, and individual may experience intrusive thinking about the person they desire, special meanings of the persona and overlooking their faults, intense energy making it hard to sleep, loss of appetite, mood swings, craving to be around the person, and rearranging their daily plans to be around the other person more frequently.  Through imagery, I showed how my parents became very consumed with each other.  In the early stage, parts of the brain are activated, which makes it as a natural euphoria.  I used the imagery of stars to show this fantasy that does take over people’s minds when they first meet someone they are attracted to.  Another aspect of Brown’s lecture that strongly influenced the poem is the study that Brown performed, which showed what two factors kept couples together.  The couples that stayed together suppressed negative judgment and the concept of self.  I tried to show this in my poem when I wrote about “his broken bottles and empty apologies and her harsh words.”  It is clear that my father did not put my mother first, and my mother constantly criticized my father.  This gave me the most insight from all the lectures because their relationship really could not succeed because these were the biggest issues in their relationship.

Finally, the last aspect of the class that inspired my poem was when Garren Small read the poem “One Day”.  The poem is essentially a son reflecting on his parents and understanding all they have done for him.  That poem touches upon forgiving your parents because they could not live up to expectations, which gave me insight on how to end the poem.  Also, the poem helped me have understanding that my parents are only human just like me, which not only gave me insight personally, but also heavily inspired the poem.