Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Jamie Walters that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Funeral for a Childhood by Amanda Morris I mourn the childhood that I didn’t have. I remember the moment it clicked: The realization that everything I thought I knew, all my memories, represented a fantasy interpretation of events; untrue. We were sitting at a booth in the 50s style diner, the lingering scent of pancakes, maple syrup, and ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Grand Fugue by Peter E. Murphy
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Kendal Lambert that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Grand Fugue by Peter E. Murphy After the hospital released me with a warning, I walked around this busy city that hadn’t noticed I’d been missing, me and my reconstructed heart, so full of gratitude I wanted to kiss every light that flashed GO, forgive the ones that said STOP. And when I felt the earth throb under my feet I remembered the subway below where commuters were ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: If You Are Absolutely Certain, I Get Suspicious by Mimi Schwartz
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. If You Are Absolutely Certain, I Get Suspicious by Mimi Schwartz Unreliable narrators are everywhere: On Fox News or MSNBC, depending on your politics. In film, theater, and of course literature, which was the original focus of a term coined by critic Wayne Booth in 1961 to refer to a fictional ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Two Poems by Stephen Dunn
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. After Making Love by Stephen Dunn No one should ask the other "What were you thinking?" No one, that is, who doesn't want to hear about the past and its inhabitants, or the strange loneliness of the present filled, even as it may be, with pleasure, or those snapshots of the future, different heads on different ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Excerpt from Killing the Messenger by Thomas Peele
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. A Murmur of Growing Intensity from Killing the Messenger by Thomas Peele That bright, sunny morning seemed like just another day. I had moved to California seven years earlier and had only recently committed to staying longer, having just turned down a good newspaper job in New Jersey. That summer I was in the throes of finishing a graduate ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Abduction from the Seraglio by Roberta Clipper
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Abduction from the Seraglio by Roberta Clipper I met her in London. In my cousin Shawn's favorite black and tan. We're the only cousins the same age. Our mothers are sisters. We were always begging them to fly us to each other's houses—him to visit me in Nairobi, me to spend school holidays with him in London. I was staring at her long, ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Poems by Kim Addonizio
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. "What Do Women Want?" by Kim Addonizio I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap, I want it too tight, I want to wear it until someone tears it off me. I want it sleeveless and backless, this dress, so no one has to guess what’s underneath. I want to walk down the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store with all those ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Learning my Place from Nature’s Graveyard
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Learning my Place from Nature's Graveyard by Amanda Morris Splintered fence. Shattered shrubs. Shredded trunks. And pine needles. Everywhere, pine needles. Destruction with the scent of Christmas. As I made my way into the barely accessible remains of yard, gingerly pulling back heavy pine branches to expose anything left ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: The Funnies by Peter E. Murphy
This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. The Funnies by Peter E. Murphy I read before I learned to read, or at least I pretended to. I looked at the brightly colored comic strips and made up the words I thought the cartoon characters were saying. The funnies came on Sunday when my father put his music on, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and the rest of their friends. Our small apartment sounded like a cathedral. Every Thursday night ... Read More...
Bravo Taylor!
We are as proud as brass buttons to announce that Taylor Coyle, our Murphy Writing Program Assistant, has won the 1st place poetry prize in the Richard Stockton College's 5th Annual Jennifer Cakert Writing Awards. (Read Taylor's award-winning poem, "The Science of Aging," below.) You can hear Taylor and the other prize winners read their poems and essays at Stockton College on Tuesday, April 8th at 6pm in Room F111. It's free and refreshments will be served. The Jennifer Cakert Writing Awards are sponsored by the Jan-ai Scholarship Fund, which has also ... Read More...