Thoreau's Rooster

            I’ve taught nearly 2000 students since I began teaching at the university level. Every now and then, an occasional student stands out from among the rest. Krystel Madison was such a student, and it amazes me, still, these few months after her unexpected death, to use the past tense when referring to Krystel. She was born December 18, 1979, in Savanna, Illinois, the daughter of Alfred and Anatalia (Adalim) Madison. In May 2005, Krystel graduated from Ball State University with honors, earning Bachelor Degrees in Science and Humanities and in Teaching. At the time of her sudden death from heart failure on January 20, 2006, Krystel, 26, was working as a teacher at Black Hawk College Out-Reach Center in Moline, Illinois. Because she was a writer, Krystel’s creative works remain with us, the living text of literature serving as testament to her artistry and to her belief in “the-what-should-be, could-be or ought-to-be” of life.
            Krystel was a wonderfully gifted writer. Her creative nonfiction piece titled “The Use of Force” was published in Thoreau’s Rooster and that was also published in Writing Out of the Margins, Volume 4 (both journals produced in the spring of 2005) serves as evidence of her remarkable eye for detail, her sincere expression of a delicate issue, and her exploration in prose that is, as Phillip Lopate describes the personal essay, “another way at getting at the truth.” For the Writing Out of the Margins publication (a compilation of works written by students in the Creative Writing in the Community program), Krystel also wrote a work of fiction titled “Warm Summer Nights,” a piece inspired by her writing partner named Rhiana from VSA arts of Indiana, East Central District. In this work, Krystel recreates her young partner’s experience at a camp for disabled children, ages five through eighteen. Over the course of the semester, Krystel rode the city bus to meet with her partner and went beyond the required five visits of one hour each, spending instead at least ten hours to become thoroughly acquainted with her adolescent match. The story eventually shared with Krystel explores the common human experience of peer pressure at a tender age when the ego suffers from cruel comments about one’s appearance. Before publication, Krystel’s partner enthusiastically granted approval of the story that captures a pivotal moment in Rhiana’s young life. And for Krystel, the publication of “Warm Summer Nights” affirmed the story’s moral purpose of giving voice to an often-marginalized member of society.
            Though the Creative Writing in the Community course was only the second time I’d had Krystel as a student (years earlier, she had taken an Introduction to Fiction class that I taught), her creative nonfiction piece (“The Use of Force”) and her work of fiction (“Warm Summer Nights”) are two of the most artfully rendered literary works written by an undergraduate student that I’ve had the pleasure of reading in my years of teaching creative writing. Though her life ended much to soon at the age of twenty-six, her family, her friends, her students, and her mentors are grateful that Krystel Madison’s writing remains to remind us of her verve, her aesthetics, and her dedication to telling a story that reveals a truth about the human experience.

Barbara Bogue
Assistant Professor, Ball State University

Read Krystel’s essay, please visit
http://www.assumption.edu/users/land/v4essays/krystel_madison.html