Northern Michigan University NMU Commons All NMU Master's Theses Student Works 2009 Venus Spinning Tara Acton Northern Michigan University Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.nmu.edu/theses Recommended Citation Acton, Tara, "Venus Spinning" (2009). All NMU Master's Theses. 341. https://commons.nmu.edu/theses/341 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Works at NMU Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in All NMU Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of NMU Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. VENUS SPINNING By Tara Acton THESIS Submitted to Northern Michigan University In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS Graduate Studies Office 2009 SIGNATURE APPROVAL FORM This thesis by Tara Acton is recommended for approval by the student‘s Thesis Committee and Department Head in the Department of English and by the Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies. ____________________________________________________________ Committee Chair: Dr. Ronald L. Johnson Date ____________________________________________________________ First Reader: Dr. Carol Ann Bays Date ____________________________________________________________ Second Reader: Prof. Rebecca Johns Date ____________________________________________________________ Department Head: Dr. Raymond J. Ventre Date ____________________________________________________________ Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies: Date Dr. Cynthia Prosen OLSON LIBRARY NORTHERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY THESIS DATA FORM In order to catalog your thesis properly and enter a record in the OCLC international bibliographic data base, Olson Library must have the following requested information to distinguish you from others with the same or similar names and to provide appropriate subject access for other researchers. NAME: ACTON, TARA DATE OF BIRTH: MAY 13, 1984 ABSTRACT VENUS SPINNING By Tara Acton This collection of creative nonfiction essays may be split into three basic sections: childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. The first section explores my early forays into reaching beyond myself, from my romanticized attempt at piano lessons to my desire for a notable nickname. Adolescence introduces my desire to connect with both the ancients and the world at large, as well as my idiosyncratic struggle to stand apart from my teenage peers. The final section deals with my uneasy entrance to adulthood, from connecting to a stubborn America as a telemarketer to solidifying an identity through singing. The overriding theme of the work is the yearning for that indefinable just beyond. I constantly seek for both a more-than-regular individual within myself and a connection to people, to places, to times past. The memoir focuses on finding humor and meaning in a middle-class American upbringing. i Copyright by Tara Acton 2009 ii DEDICATION This collection is dedicated to my parents, who let Hurricane Tara be herself, Erica, who introduced me to creative nonfiction, and Brennan, who reminded me why I love it. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my thesis director, Dr. Ron Johnson, for his support, advice, and encouraging feedback. His appreciation for the art of memoir kept me striving to hone my voice on the page. Also deserving of thanks are my first and second readers Carol Ann Bays and Rebecca Johns for their careful reading and helpful suggestions. For late-night answers and clarifications of the tricky English language, thanks to my mother, the Grammar Lady. Finally, my gratitude goes to my fellow writers at Northern Michigan University for their workshop suggestions and advice, and to Johanna Meetz, for her constant encouragement and willingness to lend a fresh look whenever my writing needed it. This thesis follows the format prescribed by the MLA Style Manual and the Department of English. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 Body: The Twilight Bark .............................................................................................................. 22 A Swiss Army Dream ......................................................................................................... 33 Charm School Dropout ...................................................................................................... 44 The Nickname Game .......................................................................................................... 59 To Be Small .......................................................................................................................... 72 Sailor Girl ............................................................................................................................. 78 Jesse‘s List of Don‘ts .......................................................................................................... 97 Singing in Color .................................................................................................................. 115 On the Line with America ................................................................................................. 131 A Penchant for Plague ....................................................................................................... 151 Hwæt: A Bagatelle .............................................................................................................. 165 Plastic Stars .......................................................................................................................... 168 In the Water ......................................................................................................................... 179 Venus Spinning .................................................................................................................... 191 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................. 202 v Introduction: My Reading and Writing Influences In my early years as an undergraduate at the University of Iowa, I took a literature course that was not required of me. As an English major, I was exempt from this class geared at non-majors, but I wanted to take a course that was filled with students who weren‘t used to analyzing texts on a daily basis, who probably didn‘t have a whole repertoire of past readings to quote from in the middle of class discussion, and who would, I thought, be a refreshing group to take part in. I was not disappointed. Our teacher, Steve the TA as we called him, was the kind of inspiring instructor that our motley crew of young students needed—he was a twenty-something hipster who spent much of the hour telling amusing stories of his life as a musician and drifter, all the while pulling even the most dedicated slacker into a varied world of literature. He chose a variety of readings for our class to discuss, from Mary Shelley‘s classic Frankenstein and Keats‘s ―Ode to a Grecian Urn‖ to Ray Bradbury‘s Dandelion Wine and 1 Haruki Murakami‘s exercise in modernist absurdity, A Wild Sheep Chase. We drew pictures on the chalkboard and acted out scenes from Shakespeare on the campus lawn. Perhaps it was his age, so close to our own, and his abundant cool factor that allowed my classmates and me to connect with Steve the TA, respect him, and seek to read and write well in his class. Steve believed we should be proactive in the literary world, and offered extra credit to anyone who attended an author reading and wrote a short response. The University of Iowa and various local bookstores provided abundant opportunities for authors to visit and speak, and when I landed tickets to see David Sedaris give a reading, I was thrilled. Not only would I get to see my favorite author, the man whose writing had informed my own as-yet-meager attempts at creative nonfiction writing, I would receive extra credit for having done so. When I approached Steve to confirm this, my excitement overflowing, a conflicted look crossed his features. ―Hmm,‖ he said, and paused. I was confused, having expected him to rejoice in my interest in David Sedaris‘s writing. ―Well,‖ Steve finally said. ―I think his writing is what we might consider… fun writing? It‘s very… humorous. And I would prefer you write a response on one of the other writers who will be visiting this semester. But,‖ he said with a smile, ―if you‘d like to attend another reading in addition, and maybe do a compare-and-contrast-style response, I would definitely give you credit for that.‖ He pointed out that an author who had been a political prisoner in Asia was speaking next week. ―That seems like something that would work.‖ I didn‘t know how to respond to this. Of course David Sedaris‘s writing was fun. I didn‘t bother reading anything on my own time that I didn‘t find personally satisfying. 2 But fun and humorous, it seemed, was not equated with what my instructor considered real, worthwhile, or thought-provoking enough to write an intelligent response paper. I abruptly declined his offer to attend another reading in addition to David Sedaris‘s. I would forgo the extra credit in protest. I wandered away, somewhat dazed at this unexpected turn of events. My shyness kept me from asking the teacher whom I had so admired why, just because a writer was popular with a general audience, his work was not appropriate for a college class. Two years later, I was given the opportunity