UNC Student Organization for Undergraduate Literature

During our last event, I heard something from a student that thrilled my (heart? soul?). Speaking informally to another student about SOUL, he said [paraphrasing]: "I signed up for dozens of things at Fall Fest, and I don't really remember how I got into this, but this is now one of about three things that I actually still do." He went on to say that the people in SOUL are utterly without pretense, that the events are genuinely fun. We reminisced (imagine that!) about an earlier event in the year, an event involving certain anonymously-instigated Clan of the Cave Bear reenactments, and we talked, too, as students outside of a classroom, about the creative writing program at UNC, the Orr and Price readings, and our impressions of these and other things.

A student asked, "Do you guys have regular meetings?"

I said no.

The student who first spoke up in favor of SOUL said, "That's one thing I wish we did have. Just once a week, we could get together and..."

And he had ideas. Not bad ones! Or "bad," I suppose, for a certain set (with whom we're happily not associated)--a set that doesn't enjoy sitting around and reading poetry, shamelessly making subjective statements about it, discussing classes, discussing literature, laughing. (Gasp.)

The idea of weekly meetings has been turning on my head since that evening. At first I thought: No, we'll never get a good enough turnout, not every week! And then I thought: Well, does it matter? And I've come to believe that it does not, in fact, matter.

Where two or three are gathered together...

There is SOUL! Every time we hold an event, the residual group, the group that remains standing around after cleanup, after the people who came for the food (we love you, too) and the entertainment have gone, that little residual group that stands around, kicked out of the building ("Forget the myth. / There is no one I / Am put out with / Or put out by") laughing and talking, rambling on about literary magazines, poetry, books, life, writing -- that little group, and the spirit of that group, which is indeed utterly without pretense, whose interest by virtue of its appearance at those end-of-the-barrel minutes really cannot be affected -- that group, and not the event preceding its assembly, is the reason I've attempted to revive The Association of English Majors.

And so, the purpose of this post is twofold. First, for me, and you all with me I trust, to look at our progress as we approach the year's halfway mark, and to say that we have had a success--a real success--and in doing so to thank all the people who made it work.

And second, to look forward and to ask if, and how, we can improve.

I leave the idea of weekly meetings, as a step towards such improvement (and a fundamental step, I think, in strengthening the English major / creative writing minor community at Chapel Hill, no matter how small the heart of that community may be at this point), with you all. Think about it, please.

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"Our great thoughts, our great affections, the Truths of our life, never leave us." - William Makepeace Thackeray