{"id":60,"date":"2017-11-30T10:05:42","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T15:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/?p=60"},"modified":"2018-01-13T09:03:21","modified_gmt":"2018-01-13T14:03:21","slug":"dr-sarracino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/2017\/11\/30\/dr-sarracino\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Carmine Sarracino: Poet and Creative Writing Mentor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Carmine Sarracino teaches Creative Writing and American Literature at Elizabethtown College. He also directs the popular creative writing minor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sarracino teaches several classes at E-town, including American Literature, Creative Writing, Growing Up in America, and the Fantastic in Literature.\"\"<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Emily Soltys, a sociology-anthropology major, took Poetry with Sarracino. She found his unique teaching style to be helpful.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur poetry class was mostly us writing our own poetry and then reading it to the class,\u201d Soltys said. \u201cDr. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Discovering Walt Whitman <\/strong><\/h3>\n

If taking a class with Sarracino, E-town students will inevitably hear stories about the poet Walt Whitman, a nineteenth-century American poet. Sarracino\u2019s office door is decorated with a single sticker that reads \u201cWhat would Walt Whitman do?\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as an undergraduate, Sarracino did not connect with Whitman\u2019s writings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very intellectual, very cerebral, and I thought Whitman was too emotional, undisciplined, not a craftsman,\u201d Sarracino said.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until graduate school that he saw the value in Whitman\u2019s works.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had changed,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe very things that repelled me as an undergrad now attracted me: Whitman’s intuitive leaps, his oceanic emotionality, his great big heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarracino said that if given the opportunity, he would ask Whitman about his use of the word \u201cSelf.\u201d In his poems, Whitman purposefully spelled self with a capital \u201cS.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the sense of selfhood that expands beyond one’s skin, beyond the superficial facts about one’s physical self,\u201d Sarracino explained. \u201cWhitman’s \u2018mysticism\u2019 is how this is usually categorized\u2014and that is what interests me most about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing Poetry and Memoir<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Sarracino is a respected writer. His journal articles and poetry have been featured in several publications, and he has published three collections of poetry, \u201cThe Idea of the Ordinary,\u201d \u201cThe Heart of War,\u201d and \u201cThe Battlefield Photographer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added to this list, Sarracino has published a novel set in the Civil War, Point Blank<\/em> and a cultural study, The Porning of America,<\/em> which examines the social\u00a0effects of the mainstreaming of porn.<\/p>\n

Currently he is writing his memoir. It will cover his entire life until the present time.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Sarracino explained that \u201cmemories are like this.\u201d Every moment of a person\u2019s 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 \u201ca collection of such narratives that could be read in almost any order.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s garden. Instead of showing concern for her young grandson, his grandmother exclaimed, \u201cThe peppers! The peppers!\u201d Sarracino laughs when recounting the story.<\/p>\n

Giving Advice about Writing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When it comes to conquering the empty page, Sarracino says to write a terrible first draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blank page is scary.\u00a0And alluring. But scary,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI overcome\u00a0that\u00a0fear 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond that, English majors should read their favorite authors.<\/p>\n

\u201cFind writers you love, and read, read, read.\u00a0 Good writers are good readers,\u201d Sarracino added.<\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,31,32,10],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-creative-writing","tag-dr-sarracino","tag-poetry","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}