Literary Lore
Literature is not a monolith. A simple call for submission will reap a range of results. It is within this space of mercurialness that Devin has dug his feet in. Of course, the freedom of literature is born from the paragon of language: the symphonic arrangement of syntax; the lyricism of rhythm; the scorching iron—or soothing honey—of diction. All elements one finds in Devin's works; all elements one finds within themselves.
*Pictures taken by DLG at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens*
Devin did not find poetry; rather, poetry found him. And though he would be none the wiser, the timing couldn't have been anything but an ancestral zephyr, catching him by happenstance through the form of a freshman slam poetry assignment. As a teenager, high school seemed to be the pinnacle of existential turbulence. Yet, as his life seemed to move out of the black and into the blue, poetry embraced him; licked the scars of his teenage growing pains clean; gave him a home free of judgment and expectations. After graduating from high school, he was committed to furthering his grasp of poetry's technicalities. Ergo, he minored in Creative Writing in undergrad, a feat that led him to become an award-winning, published poet.
While earning his Bachelor of Arts at Wayne State University, Devin participated in a Poetry Writing Workshop course led by the skilled Professor Robert Laidler. Throughout the course, he wrote six craft essays: each work in response to a collection of poetry; each work meticulously crafted within the realm of its respective source material; each work a bastard of form—vigorously shattering the constructs of a typical essay as well as that of what one would expect from a literary review.
If a novel is the hero's journey, a short story is the fleeting glance into the closing window of the deuteragonist; a delicate vignette clasped in memory—gone just as it's captured, like holding water in one's hand. That is, short stories propel everyday life into the gleaming grandiose or the wheeping languor. For Devin, short stories have served as an incandescent well he's thrown pages into—hoping the ripples of the ravine below accept them gracefully, merging memory, history, ancestry, and, above all, reality.
Devin Lewis-Green's works have been published in a number of literary journals, contests, and poetry print issues. However, there was a time when the anchor of rejection discouraged him from submitting to such outlets. In that regard, publication was an elite island; a homogeneous congregation of a select few. Albeit he was tempted at times to write with the specific goal of being published, he found this purpose to be too taxing—one that soured the freedom of creative expression. Only by staying true to that freedom was he eventually published. Only truth brought freedom, and only freedom brought expression.
