CONNOR RODENBECK
WRITING PORTFOLIO
POETRY
One night in Denver
This poem is the quarter-long project for the Theory, History, Research course for the Writing minor. I chose to write a documentary poem that explores the rhetoric that permeates Denver as a city. I consider living in Denver to be a huge contributor to my poetics; coupled with inspiration from William Carlos Williams's Paterson, this is a poem that showcases my ability to fuse both rhetoric and poetry.
Sweetness
This poem is the first poem in my undergraduate creative thesis titled Openings, which is the result of a two-quarter long independent study project at DU working with poet Dr. Lindsay Turner. While a short poem, it is imagistic and makes lengthy figurative leaps. This poem sets up my project as one exploring how to heal our inherent wounds.
Suture
This poem was first written in an Advanced Poetry workshop under the instruction of Dr. Graham Foust where the assignment was to deeply consider sound and echoes in a poem. The near-rhymes and flow of this poem pushed me away from my usual imagistic tendencies, while still feeding into the themes of wounds, interpersonal relationships, and queerness that have hovered around my poetic work.
GOOSEFLESH
This poem was written for my thesis and illustrates one of the largest themes of my creative work: a poet's unique ability to etherealize memories and experiences in ways that create meaning. In a lot of ways, this was the poem that led to all of the others in the collection. I have revised it through a poetry workshop and it is one of my favorites in the thesis because it seems refined and mature.
The Bison
This poem is the final poem in my undergraduate creative thesis. Originally written as a sonnet with a rigid rhyme scheme, I revised it by listening to what the line wanted to be instead of having constraints. Formally, it is still a sonnet with rhymes, but is much more free; additionally, it punctuates the journey that my speaker has undergone, finding beauty in solitude through poetry.