Monica Berlin '95

Why Knox?

Because there's nowhere else I'd rather be. Because nowhere else does what we do, or has these people and this history. Because nowhere else seems this supportive and encouraging of the individual in a community and the individual as an individual. And because I can't imagine not being here, among these students and with my colleagues.

Describe your current research/creative work. What is most interesting about this work?

Because most of my writing process -- both creative and scholarly -- is, in fact, a process of living with something in hopes of knowing that something by heart, until it becomes a part of me, I tend to try not to discuss my work, to intellectualize it or question it, until I'm at a certain point in revision. If I make the mistake of putting it in abstract or theoretical terms before I've had a chance to figure out how to best render the images that haunt me, I am often unable to complete the work. I want to protect the porousness of my writing. So, I'll say this: I'm making some poems, line by line, mostly sonnets, and I'm writing an essay about beds and another about teaching during the first decade of the 21st century, and I'm playing around with some fiction.