West Chester University educates many aspiring artists everyday. These artists may be musicians, sketchers, painters or poets, and they hope to one day be heard through their work. For one WCU student, that hope became a reality.”Flornography” is a recent publication by two co-authors, Daniella Langianese, a WCU fourth-year student and Chuck Bowers. “Flornography” contains seven poems and accompanied photographs.
Langianese wrote six of the poems, and Bowers wrote one poem and was the photographer that created visualizations, bringing the poems to life.
“I have chronicled my life through poetry and I don’t ever plan on retiring from the pen,” Langianese said. She found her calling to write at a young age and is working on getting her written pieces published.
Langianese has been writing poems since she was about 11 and has not stopped since. She plans to pursue a career in writing. According to her biography, her mother gave her two volumes of love/relationship poetry written by Merritt Malloy. She also enjoys reading Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes.
In the sixth grade, attending Fretz Middle School in Bradford, Pa., Langianese wrote her version of a newspaper for her classmates and that was turned into the school’s published newspaper. In middle and high school, she wrote for the yearbook committee.
Attending Bradford Area High School, she had an internship at her local newspaper, “The Bradford Era.” Before graduating high school, she was promoted from intern to staff writer.
Langianese met Bowers while working at a bar as he was a patron. Langianese shared her work with Bowers, and since he liked it, he asked her to write poems to be published with his photographs of flowers. Acccording to Bowers, publishers would want content to go along with the photography. He asked her to write four to 10 poems for the pictures. The two of them came together to create their first publication.
The ideas of pictures taken for the book were seen through Bowers’ camera lens. The title of the book came after a friend of Bowers’ commented that the pictures were so detailed that it looked like pornography with flowers. Putting the two words together, the title was created as a pun.
After snapping the pictures, Bowers gave Langianese a copy of all the pictures in the book. She picked out her favorite photographs and wrote six poems about them. It took her three months to write out her poems.
The first poem is written by Bowers to his wife, and the other six were written by Langianese. Her inspirations came from family and past relationships.
“I write in images, I will capture an image or multiple images in my head and then try to put the images to paper,” Langianese said. “My goal when I write is to make the readers see the images that I saw when writing the poem, but the great thing about poetry is that the images can be seen uniquely for every reader’s conscious.”
For at least one hour a day, she writes poems, continues writing style or adds more to a novel she is currently working on.
“I believe that you cannot call yourself an artist if you don’t write daily,” Langianese said. “Writing has become a way of life for me. It is my therapy as well as my hobby. I hope to publish more work in the future, but regardless of publication, I will always continue to write.”
Langianese is majoring in English with a minor in journalism. She has submitted work to the “Deadalus,” the WCU literary magazine, to be published. After graduation this May, she plans to continue a career path to publish her creative writings.
Ginger Rae Dunbar is a first-year student majoring in English. She can be reached at RD655287@wcupa.edu.