Student Writing at Oberlin: Something Went Wrong

Writing is, perhaps, the most solitary of artistic activities - requiring neither the collaboration inherent in the performing arts nor the materials (physical and institutional) of the visual arts. Only in writing is there an archetype of the artist who requests his/her entire output burned. There is an essential paradox lurking here: what good is writing (or any art) if it is a voice in the dark, without audience? It is arguable that any creative work in some way seeks to be experience - as in Paul Celan's metaphor of "messages in a bottle, which may or may not be found."

This paradox could not be clearer, or more painful, than it has been at Oberlin of late. The demise of literary publications - The Plum Creek Review, The Dial - has become all-too frequent an event. A professor recently remarked to me that there was a sense of nostalgia among some for a time when there was only one publication on campus and every student involved in writing submitted work.

Why the backslide, and why the stigma (especially among creative writing majors) against publication? I suggest that there is a deeper reason than the introversion or misanthropy of writers to be found on-site. The arts at Oberlin wear stilts. With works confined to the safety of the stage, they blip into and out of existence like novae, deprived of their context. Too often I have felt surrounded by a sea of monologues, lacking in any conversation. Artistic presentation here is still (perhaps due in part to the Conservatory's large presence) deeply linked to a sort of 19th century idea of genius.

It is worth asking if this is always the best paradigm. When I wander around campus, I find that among my deepest desires is the wish to become lost in Oberlin - as an open conflux of idea and happening, a private space made public (and vice-versa). It is no accident in this regard that contemporary theory tends to see culture as essentially textual - we as a society are awash in a detritus of texts. Yet in the writing community here there is only a strange vacuum where there could be this wonderful, subterranean pull. Yes, this is the point of my piece: things would be more interesting here if people were willing to be lost a little more.

There are some signs, however, that the trend may be turning. The efforts of the recently-formed umbrella organization the Oberlin Community of Writers (OCOW) to facilitate communication through workshops and readings is commendable. Enchridion, the only continuing general-theme publication, continues to improve. A particularly exciting prospect is presented by a new publication, Noun of Terror, focussing on writing outside more normative approaches and on collaborative efforts and processes. States junior staff-member Kurt Beals, "[Our purpose] is to promote interaction between writers on the level of creativity and to display publicly work that is challenging, not presenting all work as isolated, complete expression."

Taken broadly, this goal - the de-isolation of expression - contains a profound idealism: the same idealism seen in the delightfully absurd blue labels appearing all over campus, or Andre Breton's vision of living in a glass house. Let's hope it isn't entirely without foundation.