Thought process for the week of March 28

Well, this week I really enjoyed out guest speaker Jim Reese. Right away I felt like Jim was going to be a great speaker. He looked very presentable, and to top it off, he was from my home state. Jim seemed to be somewhat nervous while talking about writing and the importance that writing has in everyone’s life. I think he did a great job explaining about each of his pieces, and about the real stories that inspired them. Another great thing that I noticed about Jim and his speech was that he shared a variety of different works so that everyone in the audience was likely to be able to relate to parts or all or a piece of pieces. He collected together serious pieces, humourous pieces, silly pieces, love pieces, family pieces, sad ones, and pieces that were not really much like poetry at all. In addition to all his poetry, Jim also had a small collection of short storied; a couple of which he did share. The interesting fact that I learned about his short stories was that most of them started out as poems and he later decided he had enough information and events to make them into full stories. The most unique piece I remember him sharing was one that was in the form of definitions and instructions. He wrote a survival type of piece able visiting or going to a farm in Nebraska. Also being from Nebraska and having relatives that live on a farm, I was able to really get a kick out of some of the information and advice he gave to "city folk" trying to live it up on a farm. Jim seems very proud of his Nebraska heritage and writes about it very well. Being able to hear someone so talented in an area that I wish to excel speak about writing and his writings really gives me hope in that some day I will make it too. All in all, Jim Reese did a wonderful job speaking and sharing his poetry and stories. He had a great voice, spoke clearly and with a great amount and excitement. He also really related to a wide variety of people and kept that audiences attention the entire time. He had a way of speaking that just made everyone excited to be able to hear what he was going to say next. I would definitely enjoy being able to listen to Jim speak and share some of his stuff in the near future. Jim Reese made me feel proud to be a Nebraskan and is proof that even small city, middle of nowhere people can make it big in the writing world.