Elizabethtown College English Department

Dr. Carmine Sarracino teaches Creative Writing and American Literature at Elizabethtown College. He also directs the popular creative writing minor.

Sarracino teaches several classes at E-town, including American Literature, Creative Writing, Growing Up in America, and the Fantastic in Literature.

His literature classes are peppered with detailed stories that provide historical and biographical context for the readings. Understanding the history behind the works greatly enriches the reading experience for his students.

Emily Soltys, a sociology-anthropology major, took Poetry with Sarracino. She found his unique teaching style to be helpful.

“Our poetry class was mostly us writing our own poetry and then reading it to the class,” Soltys said. “Dr. Sarracino fostered a safe environment where students could give and receive feedback on their work. I think learning to take criticism along with the compliments ultimately made me a better writer.”

Outside the classroom, Sarracino enjoys a variety of pastimes. He loves to travel, particularly in India and Nepal. His office is decorated with artwork he collected from these countries. He often practices target shooting and archery, and he trains in taekwondo.

Discovering Walt Whitman

If taking a class with Sarracino, E-town students will inevitably hear stories about the poet Walt Whitman, a nineteenth-century American poet. Sarracino’s office door is decorated with a single sticker that reads “What would Walt Whitman do?”

However, as an undergraduate, Sarracino did not connect with Whitman’s writings.

“I was very intellectual, very cerebral, and I thought Whitman was too emotional, undisciplined, not a craftsman,” Sarracino said.

It wasn’t until graduate school that he saw the value in Whitman’s works.

“I had changed,” he explained. “The very things that repelled me as an undergrad now attracted me: Whitman’s intuitive leaps, his oceanic emotionality, his great big heart.”

Sarracino said that if given the opportunity, he would ask Whitman about his use of the word “Self.” In his poems, Whitman purposefully spelled self with a capital “S.”

“This is the sense of selfhood that expands beyond one’s skin, beyond the superficial facts about one’s physical self,” Sarracino explained. “Whitman’s ‘mysticism’ is how this is usually categorized—and that is what interests me most about him.”

Writing Poetry and Memoir

Sarracino is a respected writer. His journal articles and poetry have been featured in several publications, and he has published three collections of poetry, “The Idea of the Ordinary,” “The Heart of War,” and “The Battlefield Photographer.”

Added to this list, Sarracino has published a novel set in the Civil War, Point Blank and a cultural study, The Porning of America, which examines the social effects of the mainstreaming of porn.

Currently he is writing his memoir. It will cover his entire life until the present time.

Sarracino used the image of a thanka to describe his memoir. Thankas are Buddhist scroll paintings. They usually have clusters of images across a single scroll.

Sarracino explained that “memories are like this.” Every moment of a person’s life is at once separate and united. Using this symbolism, he chose to begin his memoir with a thanka. The approach provides the reader with “a collection of such narratives that could be read in almost any order.”

His favorite narrative from his memoir is a story of his grandmother who came from Northern Italy. One summer day Sarracino sat in her rocking chair, rocking rocked violently. He eventually tipped backwards, right into a basket filled with red peppers from his grandfather’s garden. Instead of showing concern for her young grandson, his grandmother exclaimed, “The peppers! The peppers!” Sarracino laughs when recounting the story.

Giving Advice about Writing

When it comes to conquering the empty page, Sarracino says to write a terrible first draft.

“The blank page is scary. And alluring. But scary,” he admitted. “I overcome that fear by setting the bar very low in a rough draft. I just write whatever comes to mind, however it is worded, knowing that I can always go back and re-write. Or just delete it.”

Beyond that, English majors should read their favorite authors.

“Find writers you love, and read, read, read.  Good writers are good readers,” Sarracino added.

Author Bio:

Emily Derois is a junior at Elizabethtown College, where she studies professional and creative writing. She has written for several publications included LifeLines, LifeNews, and National Right to Life News Today. Currently, she is a staff writer for The Etownian.

Tags: creative writing, Dr. Sarracino, poetry, writing