By Britton Summers
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Interested in indulging your creative side? Don’t you worry, Oklahoma City Community College’s Creative Writing courses have got you covered. 

Interested in indulging your creative side? Don’t you worry, Oklahoma City Community College’s Creative Writing courses have got you covered. 

Jon Inglett is OCCC’s Creative Writing teacher, he predominately specializes in teaching poetry. He’s been teaching poetry for 20 years. 

Inglett said that the creative writing courses focus on different genres of writing, such as poetry, fiction, narrative writing (creative nonfiction), and screenwriting. 

“We use contemporary language but explore similar themes as the great writers,” Inglett said. 

Inglett further noted that his class looks at literary models as examples of excellent writing, and that he tends to have five poems that relate to students’ weekly assignments. 

He also said that there doesn’t have to be a difference between creative writing and regular writing, as there is a lot of creativity involved in many projects. 

“Creative writing is quite different from scientific and academic research, but critical thinking is involved in every kind of writing,” Inglett said. 

Inglett then said that his poetry class begins with the concept of the image as metaphor, then moving to narrative types of poetry that tell a story, and also build on imagery as a controlling metaphor. 

He also discussed what the students write in his class. They begin with sonnets, these are usually short rhyming poems consisting of 14 lines, which are typically five foot iambics rhyming according to an established scheme. 

Next, students delve into haikus, which is a Japanese poetic style that consists of three lines, with five words in the first line, seven in the second, and five on the third. 

Then, students try their hand at writing sestinas, which are poems that consist of six stanzas of six unrhyming lines followed by an envoi of three lines. The lines are almost always regular length and are usually in iambic pentameter. 

Following this, the students learn to write villanelles. These are a 19-line poetic form that consists of five tercets (a collection of three lines), which is followed by quatrain (a stanza of four lines). 

Next, students write in a stream of consciousness. This is a narrative style where the thoughts and emotions of a narrator or character are written in such a way that a reader can track the mental state of these characters. 

Students then learn the nuances of first person narratives. This is where the story being told is from a character in the story, detailing the events of the story from their point of view, usually utilizing the pronouns I, me, mine, myself, etc.

Finally, students learn the art of writing odes. An ode is a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, which is often elevated in style and written in a varied and irregular meter.

Inglett further noted that his favorite aspect of teaching creative writing is when students create a portfolio at the end of the semester. 

“Some like to create blogs, and others use PowerPoint and Word with photography to integrate with their work. A few will create videos of their work,” he said.

Inglett said that he wants students to forget that they’re in college and explore their limitless imaginations to produce art that endures forever in their memories.