English Faculty Event

Spring 2004
English Faculty Forum

"Broken Open"
A Creative Reading
by
Dr. Carmella Braniger & Danielle LaSusa

Tuesday, March 16
6pm • Pilling Chapel

Danielle will read from the creative component of her JMS project along with other work. Carmella will read from her manuscript entitled Bounty Broken Open.

Danielle LaSusa is a graduating presidential scholar, who is working to complete her JMS honors project. She is applying to graduate schools, and hopes to study Philosophy. She is reading from the creative component of her JMS project, along with other work. Dr. Carmella Braniger is a professor in the English Department at Millikin University. She received her PhD from Oklahoma State University, and her MA from Johns Hopkins University. She is reading from her manuscript Bounty Broken Open. Her poems have been published in Sycamore Review and Poems and Plays .   Six poems from the manuscript are forthcoming in MARGIE: The American Journal of Poetry (September 2004 and 2005).

When reading the creative component of Danielle LaSusa's JMS project, Carmella noticed Danielle struggling with some of the very same issues she had and is still struggling with in her own writing. In her travel memoirs, Danielle works hard to objectively record every experience and sensation in order to closely analyze and sometimes perform a complicit critique of those experiences. Only on occasion does she break from the objectification and analysis to question the inadequacy of language. The last piece of her collection of travel memoirs is the most imaginative, yet realistic moment of the project. In her recollecting, Danielle discovers the beauty of breaking things open and allowing things to be what they are. She no longer desires to idolize and romanticize ancient relics, but wants to wear them, taste them, touch them, smell them and breathe new life into their dusty forms. After reading this last piece from the project, Carmella wanted to perform a joint reading Danielle. They come together with broken and fragmented thoughts and ideas, and hope to create something new tonight as they read together.