Memories

Created in December 2018

My final portfolio of poetry for ENGL 3840: Intermediate Verse Writing in Fall 2018. I made a list of my personal favorites below, as well as the transcript for the introduction to the collection.

Personal Favorites

• Memory

• Message Read at 3:44

• Because Art Can Be Anything (and Anything Can Be Art)

• Our Own Getaways

• Twilight Streets

• Leopard Woman

An Introduction

There definitely has been a software engineer that has tweeted something along the lines of, “Writing good code is like poetry.” And they could definitely make a case for it. Code blocks are structured like verses or stanzas for various operations. You have to use the proper syntax, or else the code won’t even compile and run. Most coding style guides recommend no more than 80 characters per line, harkening back to the days of tiny computer monitors. However, beyond the idiosyncrasies of syntax and formatting, good code has to strike a balance between functionality and readability. A good programmer will write correct code, but a great programmer writes clear, insightful comments to explain what the hell they’re doing. You’re not really writing code for the computer: you’re writing it for the next person that has to review and understand what you wrote, or fix a bug you didn’t even realize existed. Every developer knows good code when they see it, but not every developer can or will do the same. So writing good code is a bit like poetry.

So I’ve basically been dropping hot bars, fire verses, and spitting the literary and the lyrical all my life. Or at least been doing so in my college career as a prospective software engineer studying computer science. And to be honest… I’m kind of over it. I’ve always loved writing throughout my school years, whether haikus, humor articles, or collections of short stories. My favorite class hasn’t been a CS course in quite a few semesters. Those classes have been Introduction to Acting, Introduction to Creative Writing, Intermediate Narrative Writing. I don’t think I could ever constrain myself to just one medium of expressing myself. I’ve already been fortunate enough to be able to do that through creating software. But I’m always looking for ways to create something new and express all of the delusions and daydreams of my life.

This collection is another example of that.

Buckle up.

Memories

A collection of poetry.