A Few Words About Change
Alex Farr
About The Study
FYS Instructor Miranda Zent
Alex’s poetry reflects a sense of frustration familiar to many students in their first year of college. During this time of intense change it’s not surprising if students experience an almost total reordering of their sense of self—a strong shift in values and beliefs, the assumption of new responsibilities, a different sense of home and adulthood. The big question that confronts many of us during this crucial time asks what facets of our previous identity will remain after these monumental changes have done their work? How can we know those essential, defining features of our identity, and how much control do we have over whether we shed them or not?
As she says in her rationale, Alex’s first year was full of changes that profoundly impacted her. Alex confronted these changes head on, writing from them, analyzing them, finding meaning from them intellectually, creatively, emotionally and spiritually. Her poetry meditates on the dynamic nature of identity, specifically the ways that time and place shape the self. She struggles with ambivalence in the face of her “love/hate” relationship with time, identifies some hard won insights born from disillusionment, and considers the paradox that the nature of the essential self is intrinsically dynamic.
Author Bio
Alexandra Farr is a full time student at Columbia College, majoring in acting, minoring in creative writing. For Alex, a career in acting is the ultimate way to experience life. "People fascinate me, and acting gives me the opportunity to explore this attraction. In a way, acting allows me to live through the character I portray. It allows me to experience the world as more than one person.” In addition to acting, Alex has spent many years studying dance and vocal performance. Alex has lived in New York, St. Thomas, Pennsylvania, and now Chicago. She has also traveled to the United Kingdom. She is looking forward to exploring more countries around the world because of her passion to understand and embrace world cultures. It is through her poetry that Alex nurtures her affection for the written word. “We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out of control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us kinship where all is represented as separation."― Adrienne Rich.
