Jon Piccirillo

Greetings! My name is Jonathan Piccirillo, however, my friends usually call me either Jon or Pickles. The origin of my nickname Pickles still eludes me, however I suspect it is some derivation of my last name Piccirillo. I hail from southeastern Connecticut from a small town named Lyme. Lyme, despite being located in the heavily populated state of Connecticut has an approximate population of only 1,000 people. My family moved to Lyme from London England when I was five years old. Although I have many fond memories of my life in England, moving to the United States was probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me. In Lyme I was exposed to vast amounts of untamed woods, the ocean, and plenty of room to pursue childhood games. It was here that my love of nature and the wilderness was realized and the opportunity to pursue this love was readily available. Now, almost 14 years after moving to Lyme, my love of the woods has only grown in strength and has helped shape who I am as a person. Besides a love of the woods my extra-curricular interests include chess, running, skiing, Frisbee, soccer, hiking and kayaking. I have always been an active person, never one to stay indoors when I could be exploring outdoors. I believe my love of physical activities comes from a desire for friendly competition and an addiction for challenges.

As a freshman here at St. Lawrence my academic interests are still varied and not entirely settled upon. My true passion is biology; however, I also love philosophy, history, and government. Thus, I have declared a biology major and I am actively exploring other subjects. As you might have realized by my varied academic interests, I love to learn. My sole desire in obtaining an education is to become as knowledgeable as possible in every subject-one of the key reasons why I attend a liberal arts institution. My love for biology is not born from a desire to purge the world of its magic and mysticism, as many people view biologists’ aims, but rather is born from a love of nature and the belief that the interactions within nature are beautiful, magical, and powerful.

Growing up, my literary influences have been Frost, Emerson and Tolkien. These three figures can almost sum up my entire character and my interests. Frost: my love of nature and the woods, Emerson: my belief in the power of self and the individual, and Tolkien: my love and pursuit of adventure and challenges. These three writer’s not only represent who I am, but all three have very different styles of writing that I strive to emulate. Frost’s writing is artistically structured and delicate and exact in its description of nature, Emerson is bold, well reasoned, and aggressive in its approach to the reader, while Tolkien is the master of plot and the development of a story.

My experiences with poetry are elementary and I have never taken a course that focuses solely on poetry. The main reason why I am taking this class is to learn more about poetry and to gain a better understanding of literary techniques. I find that good poetry utilizes powerful metaphors, and uses dramatic representation to signify simplistic action or thought. For dramatic representation makes a poem seem important and truthful.