Blog Post #1

When Alice Fulton wrote that “nothing will unfold for us unless we move toward what looks to us like nothing” in her poem entitled ‘Cascade Experiment’ she summed up the overall theme of the first two weeks of our class. Personally, as I read each assignment — both in and outside of class — this quote seemed applicable because every piece of writing was about seeing beyond the surface of everyday events by first accepting that we are always in the unknown. For example, Jammal May makes an argument against stereotypical assumptions about Detroit as a dangerous urban jungle in ‘There Are Birds Here’ and instead affirms that there is beauty in the city that most people fail to see due to closed-mindedness. Again, Taras Grescoe opens her article ‘Subterranean Gulag Baroque’ powerfully when she says “(she’d) come to Moscow not only to see the hell emerging on its streets but also to see the paradise beneath them.” She is acknowledging that Moscow — similarly to Detroit — has developed a negative stigma but she came to find the beauty in what most people couldn’t. May, Grescoe, and Fulton encourage their audiences to search for what is hidden in plain sight and see the world through an alternative, more hopeful lens. As egocentric as it may sound, this theme encompasses what artists of all mediums attempt to do with their art — to show those who can’t see an alternative perspective on the world what they are missing.