The cliché of the struggling artist often permeates minds and wallets across American universities. However, in Iowa City, a tradition of literary and artistic excellence continues to foster the growing talent of learning young artists. Earthwords: the undergraduate literary review, has highlighted the work of University of Iowa undergraduate students in an annual publication since its start in 1980.  

At 7 p.m. April 6, participating writers will showcase their work by reading at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St. The reading is sponsored by Earthwords, Mission Creek, and the Magid Center for Undergraduate Writing. Free copies of Earthwords will be available for the audience, offering them a chance to read along and appreciate students’ artwork in the journal. 

For Carla Seravalli, her publication in Earthwords was a “pleasant surprise.” A poet, she will have three poems featured in Earthwords 39: “Packing,” “Hymen,” and “Bed Fugue.” The creative-writing major has appeared in two issues of *Ink Lit* magazine. Her poems reflect her concerns and influences from poets who inspire her.

“One thing that’s horrifying: I’ve internalized too much Sylvia Plath,” Seravalli said.

Seravalli has been interested in desiccated couplets — couplets that don’t match up. Only one of her poems is formed into couplets, the others do not follow the tradition. Deviating from the tradition of coupling, the piece is about being rubbed the wrong way by coupling and neatness, she said. Seravalli, who minors in American studies, said this influences her work as well. 

“Some has to do with traveling … the expectation of traveling to become yourself, more whole,” she said. “I was like, hold up — you’ve got to figure out what’s wrong with this country first. Don’t spread your nonsense to other countries before you figure yourself out.”

Depending on nonsense, sculptor Natalie Nicholson uses a combination of realism and the abstract in her sculptures. A set of her sculptures are featured in Earthwords 39. Her sculpture “For Scrying” will be on display at Prairie Lights on Saturday. The ceramics major was inspired by her experience with her mother and beauty products. 

“They’ve been around me my whole life,” Nicholson said. “There’s something familiar about using something used for the human body on a clay body — it’s porous.”

Nicholson’s sculptures have no bodily shape, however. They are nonrepresentational; they only look like themselves, she said. The UI senior gives them animation through individual, deft molding, and lively coloring. Her work comes alive, but the clock is ticking.

“The dye fades, so the thing lives in a short amount of time,” Nicholson said. “It has a life and a death.”

Death holds fascination for UI senior Olivia von Gries. She found inspiration from funerary sculptures in the Galleria dell’Accademia, an art museum in Florence, Italy. After rendering a 10-by-10 square chalk drawing of a resonating sculpture, she decided to emulate it again in her oil painting “Mourner.” 

“Oil paint has a sculptural quality to it,” von Gries said. “It’s very tactile; it feels like sculpture.”

Von Gries was recently inspired by Fauvism. The style often uses color to convey emotion, a tactic she uses in “Mourner.” Her painting brings classicism and modernity together in a clash of funerary, sculptural representation in front of a decaying modern structure, she said. The painting is featured in Earthwords 39 and will be on display Saturday. The art-history and studio-art major has appeared in Ache magazine and was previously featured in Earthwords 36, with a watercolor painting titled “A Woman’s Work Is Never Done.”

Chase Koenig was inspired by the livelihood of American children for his nonfiction essay “Lifestyles in Elementary Land.” After serving as a camp counselor at a YMCA in Missoula, Montana, the UI junior constructed profiles of the children in performance reviews. 

“It’s humorous — all sorts of the funny stuff kids say at summer camp,” Koenig said. 

The English and creative writing major will read  “Lifestyles in Elementary Land” aloud on April 6. Koenig also has a short story in Earthwords 39 titled “3,777 Missoulians.” He enjoys reading aloud and is grateful for the opportunity, because in Iowa there is little opportunity for artists to be recognized unless they are prodigies, he said. For him, Iowa City houses the best graduate students in the country for writing, and this reflects upon the undergraduates who appear in reviews such as Earthwords. 

“Iowa City and the people in it are a huge influence,” Koenig said. “It’s nice to have a culture to tap into because that’s not a given for every college town.”