Iowa Writers' Workshop

Sylvia Plath’s “Morning Song” explores a mother’s complex emotions towards her newborn child after giving birth for the first time. Although motherhood is often regarded as a joyous event that gives a woman’s life purpose and meaning, “Morning Song” instead depicts motherhood as a complicated event fraught with uncertainty and fear, but also with love and affection. Rather than expressing overwhelming love and happiness, the mother in the poem feels distant from her child and gradually learns to form a loving bond with them over the course of the poem. Through its precise, stark language and ambiguous similes and metaphors “Morning Song” challenges romantic ideas of the immediate bond between mother and child and depicts a mother’s honest, often contradictory, emotions about her newfound role in life that she must adjust to over time. The poem begins with the birth of the speaker’s baby and immediately describes her complex emotions towards the child. “Love set you going like a fat gold watch,” the mother tells the baby, “the midwife slapped your footsoles and you bald cry/ took its place among the elements” (1-3). The mother’s stark and objective tone immediately suggests her emotional distance from her baby. Although she is speaking to her own child, she does not use affectionate or loving language and the apostrophe in the first line ironically dissociates her from the infant, creating a clear distinction between the speaker and the child she is addressing. The mother…

The city of Iowa City has become legendary for their creative writing and literary works. The University of Iowa has contributed to this legacy and made it world renowned; their unrivaled approach to language, writing and literature has solidified it 's spot at the top among schools. Iowa City has always placed an emphasis on creative writing and literature. In fact, writinguniversity.org has gone so far as to say that, "For 80 years, Iowa City has been teaching the world to write." It is true,…

Introduction Differing in structure, governance, and mission, Drake University and Iowa State University are each successful institution. Located only 45 miles from one another, in Central Iowa, these schools are structured to serve their student population, to contribute to society, and to fulfill their own mission statement. This report will review each institution and critically compare their similarities and differences. It will cover the schools mission, culture, administrational…

wrong and went straight to the floor. In that moment we knew we just won our bracket. We were all screaming while jumping up and down. Some of us girls actually started to cry we were so happy. After we went through the line to shake the other team’s hands, we screamed a little bit more. Once we all calmed down for a little bit, we had to take a few pictures. When we got done taking the pictures we went to our ‘camp’ and started to take all of our gear off. When we piled into the van to head…

I went on a job shadow with Sergeant Chuck Robinson of th Kossuth County Sheriffs Office. Chuck is the nighttime supervisor, which means he only works nights and is there to mostly help the other cops, if need be. The entire job shadow was a last minute ordeal as my original job shadow fell through because there was business and personal issues at Elbert Chevrolet that kept me from shadowing there and watching. But continued to make this shadow a valuable experience. As I stated above I did my…

able to conquer it. Another thing that I gained from the upperclassman interview is that agricultural business has great opportunities. I just have to make the best of my experience at Iowa State to full get what I need. Taking the academic policies and procedures, has made me aware of the many academic rules Iowa State has. I have learned how to search for them on the Iowa State website, and find an answer to almost any academic question I have. The academic policies quiz has definitely…

also address the problems of partnering with colleges and universities while being in a rural setting. Last I will address the idea of sharing personal histories helping student connect to each other through their similarities and differences. This week’s topic of community connections has been a difficult one for me. Growing up I never had roots to one place. I moved all over the state of Iowa never living anywhere more than five years, and never in an ‘urban’ area. As a teaching professional…

something that would be necessarily worth it to me. I would take being close to my family over warm weather any day. I would be ecstatic to be able to go to california, but I don’t think i 'll be going too far. Davenport, Iowa is far enough as it is. At this point it’s about time to choose whether to go to California, or stay closer to home and go to Iowa for my secondary school. California would be nice considering that there are many attractions, also everything what the school has to offer.…

My journey first began when I decided to attend The University of Iowa in the fall of 2013 after graduating from Urbandale High School. I attended Iowa for 2 years and then when it came time to choose where I would apply to nursing school at I was stuck between wanting to continue on at Iowa’s College of Nursing, pending on my acceptance, but also needing a change in my life. I decided to choose change and Mercy College of Health Sciences presented an opportunity for just that. There is a…

When the issue of President Leath’s misuse of school property was brought to the Regents attention, In a rare rebuke of an ally, Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter said during a meeting at the University of Northern Iowa that he was extremely disappointed in Leath’s potential misuse of the planes and that “additional action is warranted.” Rastetter called Leath a successful president during his five-year tenure but said regents must “ensure that our universities are run in a manner that…