I want to sit on the back deck and read a book in the sunshine but I can't because of the carcass, once a roly-poly groundhog but now a rotting slab of flesh sitting in the grass just a few feet from the deck, probably deposited there by the dog. We've had some hot days so the odor is ripe and the flies abundant--in fact, a glance at the carcass reveals an area so thick with flies that it sparkles like an iridescent carpet. I suppose I could move the rotting carcass to a more distant location, maybe dump it over the cliff at the back of the yard, but that would require first finding the shovel and then getting close to the stench and the flies.
So I go to the bench in the front yard, which isn't nearly so comfortable as my nice chaise longue on the deck but has the advantage of not being surrounded by the buzzing flies and the stench of dead groundhog, but there I confront yet another mystery of nature: wasps scouring the worn parts of the wood, perhaps scraping up bits of building materials for their nests. I am generally unfazed by wasps fluttering nearby, but I draw the line at moving over so they can chomp at the bit of bench I happen to be occupying.
A carcass covered with flies, a bench being devoured by wasps--what sort of world do I inhabit? Close encounters with nature drew me to my little house in the not-so-big woods, but I do have boundaries. I don't mind snakes living under the front door, but the snakeskin we found above the ceiling tiles downstairs gave me the heebie-jeebies--and those gigantic spiders? Outdoors I'm happy to live and let live, but the minute they cross the threshold and come inside, I'm putting on my stomping shoes.
The back deck and front porch are liminal spaces, bits of indoors projecting into the exterior world. My chaise longue, my bench, my space--only the wasps can't seem to stop themselves from building nests in the plastic recesses beneath the lawn chairs, and the dog likes to drag her kills close to home where she can keep track of them.
Here's a plan: drag the chaise longue up by the herb gardens, where I can relax far from the stench, flies, and wasps and also get a good angle on the hummingbird feeder. It's a temporary solution but far better than spending such a gorgeous day indoors. At some point someone will have to address the dead groundhog situation, but who says that someone has to be me? Let he who misplaced the shovel wield it wisely.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Ramping up the despicability quotient
On the one hand, we have cheery notes from students grateful for the great experiences they've had in my classes; on the other hand, we have a bitter complaint that causes me to wonder who in that class might be familiar with the spelling of "despicable."
Yes, it's the time of year when an entire semester's back-breaking labor gets reduced to a handful of numbers and incompatible comments on course evaluations: the student who wants to banish all poetry from the survey class or the one who wants me to require no papers in a writing proficiency class, with "best class ever" nuzzling right up next to "worst class ever." I get variations on these every semester, but I pay more attention to the real oddball comments, like the one that called me "a despicable person." What did I do? I don't recall ramping up the despicability quotient in any of my classes.
Hey, maybe that student is a fan of Despicable Me, which could be good news if the role comes with minions. Even one minion would be enough to offset the disadvantages of despicability. So sign me up!
Yes, it's the time of year when an entire semester's back-breaking labor gets reduced to a handful of numbers and incompatible comments on course evaluations: the student who wants to banish all poetry from the survey class or the one who wants me to require no papers in a writing proficiency class, with "best class ever" nuzzling right up next to "worst class ever." I get variations on these every semester, but I pay more attention to the real oddball comments, like the one that called me "a despicable person." What did I do? I don't recall ramping up the despicability quotient in any of my classes.
Hey, maybe that student is a fan of Despicable Me, which could be good news if the role comes with minions. Even one minion would be enough to offset the disadvantages of despicability. So sign me up!
Monday, May 11, 2015
A miobile Mother's Day
Only a small portion of my Mother's Day was devoted to cleaning vomit off a car-seat (because that's what mothers do), which is a good thing because it wasn't exactly the high point of my day. What was the high point? It's hard to say:
Sitting in the front pew at my brother's church along with my parents, my children and grandchild, both of my brothers and a sister-in-law, a cousin, and a pair of nephews, who had all gathered in North Carolina for a fun family weekend involving a pile of old family photo albums, finger-licking barbecue, and lots of stories.
Waking in my motel room to the sound of my adorable granddaughter singing to her stuffed animals--and, later, sitting on a bench at the Wal-Mart where we stopped during our long drive home and hearing her sing "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" to me as we waited for our traveling companions.
Following I-77 through a long dark tunnel under a mountain in Virginia and then, as soon as hit the other side, hearing my granddaughter say, "Do it again!" (But there are only so many tunnels on the interstate....)
Sitting in the passenger's seat secure in the knowledge that the driving was in the capable hands of my son, who maneuvered us around an interminable line of stopped cars on I-77 by detouring around the blockage on a twisty country road. (The episode of carsickness caused only a small delay compared to the time we would have wasted and the nerves we would have frayed lurching through stop-and-go traffic in the afternoon sun.)
Sharing a crackers-and-snap-peas supper with my family during that long drive home, which, despite interruptions, went smoothly enough to get us to bed by 10, exhausted but thankful.
So forget the vomit and the traffic congestion--my Mother's Day put me in the presence of four generations of my family and took me through tunnels and over mountains accompanied by crackers and snap peas and silly children's songs, and what greater gift could I want?
Sitting in the front pew at my brother's church along with my parents, my children and grandchild, both of my brothers and a sister-in-law, a cousin, and a pair of nephews, who had all gathered in North Carolina for a fun family weekend involving a pile of old family photo albums, finger-licking barbecue, and lots of stories.
Waking in my motel room to the sound of my adorable granddaughter singing to her stuffed animals--and, later, sitting on a bench at the Wal-Mart where we stopped during our long drive home and hearing her sing "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" to me as we waited for our traveling companions.
Following I-77 through a long dark tunnel under a mountain in Virginia and then, as soon as hit the other side, hearing my granddaughter say, "Do it again!" (But there are only so many tunnels on the interstate....)
Sitting in the passenger's seat secure in the knowledge that the driving was in the capable hands of my son, who maneuvered us around an interminable line of stopped cars on I-77 by detouring around the blockage on a twisty country road. (The episode of carsickness caused only a small delay compared to the time we would have wasted and the nerves we would have frayed lurching through stop-and-go traffic in the afternoon sun.)
Sharing a crackers-and-snap-peas supper with my family during that long drive home, which, despite interruptions, went smoothly enough to get us to bed by 10, exhausted but thankful.
So forget the vomit and the traffic congestion--my Mother's Day put me in the presence of four generations of my family and took me through tunnels and over mountains accompanied by crackers and snap peas and silly children's songs, and what greater gift could I want?
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Baby got back
"So what's it like to be married to a celebrity?" is what millions of people are not asking me this week--but they could! My husband recently made a big splash at a campus event, so big that his photo was featured on the College's Facebook page. When he first arrived at the retirement party for one of my colleagues, my husband was a total nobody, just a friend dropping by for a piece of cake and a farewell hug. Soon, though, his photo hit the big time and suddenly my husband became the face of the event.
Well, not the face, exactly.
I never thought my husband's back was particularly photogenic, but surely it wouldn't have ended up in the spotlight if someone hadn't seen it as something special. What a back! Such a great photo is bound to go viral, leading eventually to clickbait lists like "Top ten sartorial secrets of plaid-backed mystery man." How will such a humble, unassuming Everyman cope with the media attention? Who will handle all the calls from Oprah and ESPN and Vogue?
And what if that celebrated back starts to droop beneath the weight of sudden celebrity? The media spotlight can be fickle; how soon until we see speculation about whether it's time to get the back some botox?
I don't foresee getting the back its own Twitter feed because most of its tweets would consist of some version of "Ow." It's a back that sometimes works a little too hard and doesn't always get the help it needs. However, now that it's a celebrity, maybe the back will get the pampering it deserves. Hey, here's an idea: auction off an opportunity for the back's fans to deliver back rubs. The adoring fans will get a chance to touch greatness and the back will get some attention. Win-win!
Well, not the face, exactly.
And what if that celebrated back starts to droop beneath the weight of sudden celebrity? The media spotlight can be fickle; how soon until we see speculation about whether it's time to get the back some botox?
I don't foresee getting the back its own Twitter feed because most of its tweets would consist of some version of "Ow." It's a back that sometimes works a little too hard and doesn't always get the help it needs. However, now that it's a celebrity, maybe the back will get the pampering it deserves. Hey, here's an idea: auction off an opportunity for the back's fans to deliver back rubs. The adoring fans will get a chance to touch greatness and the back will get some attention. Win-win!
Monday, May 04, 2015
Day of reckoning
Now that the semester is over and grades are turned in (hurrah!), I can look back and reckon up the impact of my research course release. No one has asked for a reckoning, which indicates a gap in our culture of accountability--but just in case anyone is interested in how much a dedicated professor can accomplish with a one-course release and a measly $1000, here's the data:
Is that enough? Just looking at the list wears me out. I probably would have done a few of these things even without the course release, but I wouldn't have even considered the grant workshop, the art history class, or the colloquium talk--and without the funds attached to my course release, I would have had to skip the conference.
But the articles? I certainly would have worked on them without the research course release, but probably more slowly. The gift of dedicated research and writing time during the semester means that I can look forward to starting a whole new project over the summer, a multi-stage project that should take me through the next two or three years.
It all starts with a conference paper next month. Better get back to work!
- Revised a journal article and saw it through the publication process.
- Completed research and (most of the) writing for an anthology essay.
- Presented a conference paper.
- Attended a regional workshop on writing successful NEH grant applications and then led a workshop sharing that information with faculty members here.
- Researched, wrote, and presented a talk on e.e. cummings for our campus colloquium series.
- Served on an ad-hoc task force evaluating our course evaluation system.
- Took an art history class that provided important context for my next big research and writing project as well as the capstone class I'm teaching in the fall.
Is that enough? Just looking at the list wears me out. I probably would have done a few of these things even without the course release, but I wouldn't have even considered the grant workshop, the art history class, or the colloquium talk--and without the funds attached to my course release, I would have had to skip the conference.
But the articles? I certainly would have worked on them without the research course release, but probably more slowly. The gift of dedicated research and writing time during the semester means that I can look forward to starting a whole new project over the summer, a multi-stage project that should take me through the next two or three years.
It all starts with a conference paper next month. Better get back to work!
Friday, May 01, 2015
A new line on my vita
Here I sit not eating cupcakes, which is difficult considering the plague of colorful cupcakes infesting campus right now. With so many retirement parties, book publication parties, going-away parties, and other types of parties, avoiding cupcakes has become a full-time job.
While trying to avoid the cupcake table at a colleague's retirement party just now, I asked him to leave behind something when he moves out of his office: His streak of good luck. "We need it more than you do," I pointed out. He promised that he will do what he can and then pointed me toward the cupcakes.
Someone left several dozen cupcakes in the department office, leftovers from some student event. I have two more food-related events to attend today; if I start eating cupcakes this early in the day, I'll be comatose by midafternoon. So this is me auditioning for the role of Cupcake-Avoider In Chief.
Won't that look good on my vita?!
While trying to avoid the cupcake table at a colleague's retirement party just now, I asked him to leave behind something when he moves out of his office: His streak of good luck. "We need it more than you do," I pointed out. He promised that he will do what he can and then pointed me toward the cupcakes.
Someone left several dozen cupcakes in the department office, leftovers from some student event. I have two more food-related events to attend today; if I start eating cupcakes this early in the day, I'll be comatose by midafternoon. So this is me auditioning for the role of Cupcake-Avoider In Chief.
Won't that look good on my vita?!
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
You'll smell me coming
We didn't know we had ramps until a tree fell on them. Who knows how long they've been growing in that little patch of woods between the meadow and the creek? Unnoticed, unappreciated, unloved--until a tree came down with a WHOMP and released from the forest floor the oniony scent of ramps.
For those unfamiliar with Appalachian cuisine, ramps are wild onions that grow in moist, silty soil. Their flavor is pungent, like a garlicky leek, and they are prized as accompaniments to eggs, bacon, or wild mushrooms.
We've overlooked that patch of ramps for who knows how long simply because they look so unassuming, their green tops resembling the early foliage of wild lilies, but as soon as we realized what we had, I started digging up recipes. Ramp risotto with asparagus and peas, ramp carbonara, cheddar biscuits with ramps and bacon, ramp and goat cheese tart--yum! We ought to have enough ramps for all those and more to give away. I had visions of myself waltzing pungently through academic buildings with a basket full of ramps, the Lady Bountiful of wild onions.
But first I had to pick them. There's nothing easier than picking onions--the ripe bulbs practically sit on surface of the soil, so you just give a little tug and up they come. Ramps, though, grow deeper and hold tighter to the soil, and the spot where they grow on our property has never been tilled or cultivated so the soil is tightly compacted and laced with roots.
"Just take a trowel, loosen up the dirt around the bulbs, and pull 'em up," said the resident green thumb, so down I went this morning to the ramp patch with my best trowel.
It was hard. Really hard. The soil was loosest next to the trench plowed out by the fallen tree, so I worked hard there jabbing the trowel into the soil, digging around rocks and roots. Sometimes I pulled too hard too soon and ended up with a handful of greens while the bulbs remained buried in the ground, and sometimes I simply couldn't work the trowel through all the roots and had to move on with empty (but dirty) hands.
I'd worked into a pretty good rhythm and nearly filled a small grocery bag when the trowel broke. Right in two. Blade in the ground, handle in my hand. That was the end of my first adventure in ramp-digging.
So I've got enough ramps to make some risotto tonight but you won't see the Lady Bountiful of ramps waltzing around campus today. Next time I'll take a shovel.
For those unfamiliar with Appalachian cuisine, ramps are wild onions that grow in moist, silty soil. Their flavor is pungent, like a garlicky leek, and they are prized as accompaniments to eggs, bacon, or wild mushrooms.
We've overlooked that patch of ramps for who knows how long simply because they look so unassuming, their green tops resembling the early foliage of wild lilies, but as soon as we realized what we had, I started digging up recipes. Ramp risotto with asparagus and peas, ramp carbonara, cheddar biscuits with ramps and bacon, ramp and goat cheese tart--yum! We ought to have enough ramps for all those and more to give away. I had visions of myself waltzing pungently through academic buildings with a basket full of ramps, the Lady Bountiful of wild onions.
But first I had to pick them. There's nothing easier than picking onions--the ripe bulbs practically sit on surface of the soil, so you just give a little tug and up they come. Ramps, though, grow deeper and hold tighter to the soil, and the spot where they grow on our property has never been tilled or cultivated so the soil is tightly compacted and laced with roots.
"Just take a trowel, loosen up the dirt around the bulbs, and pull 'em up," said the resident green thumb, so down I went this morning to the ramp patch with my best trowel.
It was hard. Really hard. The soil was loosest next to the trench plowed out by the fallen tree, so I worked hard there jabbing the trowel into the soil, digging around rocks and roots. Sometimes I pulled too hard too soon and ended up with a handful of greens while the bulbs remained buried in the ground, and sometimes I simply couldn't work the trowel through all the roots and had to move on with empty (but dirty) hands.
I'd worked into a pretty good rhythm and nearly filled a small grocery bag when the trowel broke. Right in two. Blade in the ground, handle in my hand. That was the end of my first adventure in ramp-digging.
So I've got enough ramps to make some risotto tonight but you won't see the Lady Bountiful of ramps waltzing around campus today. Next time I'll take a shovel.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Wake me when the exam is over
My honors students are frantically writing their final essay exams but the biggest question on my mind is this: Would they find it disruptive if I were to lay my head down on the desk and fall asleep? Or would my snores disturb their writing?
My computer's battery is running low and so is mine. For weeks I've been practicing a particular presentation in my sleep, but last night I got to perform it for real in front of a living, breathing, wide-awake audience, which was pretty exciting--so exciting, in fact, that I couldn't get my brain to wind down afterward.
So here I sit proctoring an exam for students who seem determined to make use of every single second of the two and a half hours allotted. I keep trying to send them silent messages: Give it up! Turn it in! Have some mercy so I can get some rest!
But it's not working. They keep putting everything they have into their writing while I'm putting everything I have into just trying to remain upright.
My computer's battery is running low and so is mine. For weeks I've been practicing a particular presentation in my sleep, but last night I got to perform it for real in front of a living, breathing, wide-awake audience, which was pretty exciting--so exciting, in fact, that I couldn't get my brain to wind down afterward.
So here I sit proctoring an exam for students who seem determined to make use of every single second of the two and a half hours allotted. I keep trying to send them silent messages: Give it up! Turn it in! Have some mercy so I can get some rest!
But it's not working. They keep putting everything they have into their writing while I'm putting everything I have into just trying to remain upright.
Monday, April 27, 2015
A flex too far
Yes, it's true that in trying times of rapid change and strategic retrenchment and decreasing revenue streams and enrollment challenges and [insert alarmist academic jargon here], it is incumbent upon all of us to be flexible. But, as a colleague succinctly pointed out to me just now, "Sometimes if you bend too far, you end up breaking."
I had just been at a meeting where it was made clear that one solution to a curricular problem is for certain people (e.g., me) to "just be flexible while we work this out." Over the years I've proven my ability and willingness to be flexible, to stretch beyond my area of expertise to cover classes or to teach at odd hours to meet students' needs, and I've even developed whole new courses on very short deadlines when that sort of flexibility was called for. So I guess I'm an expert on flexibility, but flexibility has its limits and I may have found mine today.
I'm reminded of a tree felled by the resident woodsman over the weekend, a tall, strong, hardwood tree that had weathered its share of blows and needed to be brought down before it hurt someone. My husband took chainsaw and axe to the hardy trunk, inserting wedges to ease it toward the creek, and when all was ready he just put out his hand and gave a really hard shove. Anyone coming along at that moment would have been impressed--that man just knocked down a big tree with his bare hands! But they didn't see the earlier cuts and blows that had softened it up and made it ready to break.
I'm not that tree--at least not yet--but I've weathered enough blows that's it's impossible to predict which one might just knock me right over. I may bounce back from today's crisis only to jerked in an entirely different direction tomorrow, but at some point I'm going to stop bending over, and when it happens, you'd better stay out of the way.
I had just been at a meeting where it was made clear that one solution to a curricular problem is for certain people (e.g., me) to "just be flexible while we work this out." Over the years I've proven my ability and willingness to be flexible, to stretch beyond my area of expertise to cover classes or to teach at odd hours to meet students' needs, and I've even developed whole new courses on very short deadlines when that sort of flexibility was called for. So I guess I'm an expert on flexibility, but flexibility has its limits and I may have found mine today.
I'm reminded of a tree felled by the resident woodsman over the weekend, a tall, strong, hardwood tree that had weathered its share of blows and needed to be brought down before it hurt someone. My husband took chainsaw and axe to the hardy trunk, inserting wedges to ease it toward the creek, and when all was ready he just put out his hand and gave a really hard shove. Anyone coming along at that moment would have been impressed--that man just knocked down a big tree with his bare hands! But they didn't see the earlier cuts and blows that had softened it up and made it ready to break.
I'm not that tree--at least not yet--but I've weathered enough blows that's it's impossible to predict which one might just knock me right over. I may bounce back from today's crisis only to jerked in an entirely different direction tomorrow, but at some point I'm going to stop bending over, and when it happens, you'd better stay out of the way.
Friday, April 24, 2015
It's all over but the missing
Last day of classes! And I feel rotten. Didn't sleep well. Dreamed of floods. Woke with a rotten headache. Please may I be excused from class today?
Fortunately, I don't have to think very deeply in today's classes since we are reviewing for the exam in one and doing some final peer review in the other. Instead, I'll think about all the things I'll miss when classes are over:
You know that one guy who always has something interesting to say about the reading because he has not only read the required texts but also read lots of other things and thus understands both content and context? I'll miss him--a lot. I don't get students like that every semester.
My neighbor in the next office has provided laughter and insight and new ideas, but he is moving to a real city without even a job in prospect--because he can. I'll miss him but I sincerely hope that the college will hire someone to fill his spot, not just in the curriculum but in that office. Otherwise, our little hallway will get really lonely.
I'm teaching mostly first-year students in the fall so I'll miss my English majors, especially the one who seemed so annoying at first but who grew on me over time and the one who always comes in with a smile and something cheerful to say and always writes spectacular papers.
I'll miss the graduating senior with the personalized peanut-butter jar and the one with the impressive camera and the one who likes to flash that big, bright Pioneer smile. I hope they all have Pio-tastic lives and come back to see us sometime.
And I'll miss the great works of literature I've taught this semester, the daily encounters with writers as diverse as Yann Martel, Zora Neale Hurston, and Homer. I'll see many of them again in future class, but some will inevitably stay on the shelf. By the time I find myself immersed in Ruth Ozeki this fall, I will have forgotten everyone and everything that came before. Except that one guy....
Fortunately, I don't have to think very deeply in today's classes since we are reviewing for the exam in one and doing some final peer review in the other. Instead, I'll think about all the things I'll miss when classes are over:
You know that one guy who always has something interesting to say about the reading because he has not only read the required texts but also read lots of other things and thus understands both content and context? I'll miss him--a lot. I don't get students like that every semester.
My neighbor in the next office has provided laughter and insight and new ideas, but he is moving to a real city without even a job in prospect--because he can. I'll miss him but I sincerely hope that the college will hire someone to fill his spot, not just in the curriculum but in that office. Otherwise, our little hallway will get really lonely.
I'm teaching mostly first-year students in the fall so I'll miss my English majors, especially the one who seemed so annoying at first but who grew on me over time and the one who always comes in with a smile and something cheerful to say and always writes spectacular papers.
I'll miss the graduating senior with the personalized peanut-butter jar and the one with the impressive camera and the one who likes to flash that big, bright Pioneer smile. I hope they all have Pio-tastic lives and come back to see us sometime.
And I'll miss the great works of literature I've taught this semester, the daily encounters with writers as diverse as Yann Martel, Zora Neale Hurston, and Homer. I'll see many of them again in future class, but some will inevitably stay on the shelf. By the time I find myself immersed in Ruth Ozeki this fall, I will have forgotten everyone and everything that came before. Except that one guy....
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Tiptoeing through the tautologies
If I'd known I'd be spending the morning in TautologyTown, I'd have packed something to read besides this stack of quizzes. Of course, without the quizzes, I wouldn't have missed my turn and entered the neverending labyrinth of nonmeaning.
I asked a class to analyze a poem. A villanelle, if you must know, a form we had encountered in class only a week ago when we read Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art." I outlined the structure on the board: 19 lines, with the first and third reappearing in certain set places, and only two end rhymes. "You will see this form again in next week's reading," I told them. "Be sure to keep a lookout."
So naturally when I assigned Theodore Roethke's "The Waking," I assumed that little lightbulbs would go off over their heads--or even if they didn't recall the word "villanelle" or the pattern we'd discussed in class, I assumed that they would notice that the first and third lines kept being repeated. But just in case they didn't notice the repetitions when they read the poem before class (assuming that they did so), I gave them a reading quiz with the whole poem printed on it and asked them to describe the pattern of repeated lines and draw conclusions about how those repetitions contribute to the meaning of the poem.
Some of them did a lovely job. I saw lots of little a's and b's or stars and check marks or arrows showing where the lines were repeated, and some students made strong connections between this pattern of repetition and the concept that learning requires a lot of feeling around in the dark and bumping into the same obstacles over and over again.
One student claimed that the poem follows no set pattern, which suggests a lack of attention to the most obvious features of the poem. Many more, though, wrote something like this:
The author uses repetition to repeat what he's trying to say.
The repetition reinforces the content by repeating it.
The meaning of the poem is repeated so readers can understand what he's trying to say.
I could go on, but my brain is screaming at me. He repeats what he repeats! He means what he means! He repeats what he means and he means what he repeats! How did I get stuck in this miserable maze--and can someone please show me the way out?
I asked a class to analyze a poem. A villanelle, if you must know, a form we had encountered in class only a week ago when we read Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art." I outlined the structure on the board: 19 lines, with the first and third reappearing in certain set places, and only two end rhymes. "You will see this form again in next week's reading," I told them. "Be sure to keep a lookout."
So naturally when I assigned Theodore Roethke's "The Waking," I assumed that little lightbulbs would go off over their heads--or even if they didn't recall the word "villanelle" or the pattern we'd discussed in class, I assumed that they would notice that the first and third lines kept being repeated. But just in case they didn't notice the repetitions when they read the poem before class (assuming that they did so), I gave them a reading quiz with the whole poem printed on it and asked them to describe the pattern of repeated lines and draw conclusions about how those repetitions contribute to the meaning of the poem.
Some of them did a lovely job. I saw lots of little a's and b's or stars and check marks or arrows showing where the lines were repeated, and some students made strong connections between this pattern of repetition and the concept that learning requires a lot of feeling around in the dark and bumping into the same obstacles over and over again.
One student claimed that the poem follows no set pattern, which suggests a lack of attention to the most obvious features of the poem. Many more, though, wrote something like this:
The author uses repetition to repeat what he's trying to say.
The repetition reinforces the content by repeating it.
The meaning of the poem is repeated so readers can understand what he's trying to say.
I could go on, but my brain is screaming at me. He repeats what he repeats! He means what he means! He repeats what he means and he means what he repeats! How did I get stuck in this miserable maze--and can someone please show me the way out?
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Midweek mutterings
Note to the person driving the green SUV in front of me this morning: I'll bet you could find someone to fix that muffler so you don't blast holes in the eardrums of every random stranger who crosses your path. Then again, maybe the noise fits the lifestyle promoted by your bumper sticker: "Asshole: It's not just a word; it's a lifestyle."
Note to whoever is responsible for the current weather: New windshield wipers definitely improve my outlook on life (and my ability to see where I'm going through the rain), but could we maybe have a day or two when windshield wipers aren't necessary? I'm not asking for much; just let me see the sun once in a while. (Cue massive drought.)
Note to every student who has e-mailed to ask for extra credit this week: As a rule I don't offer extra credit, but this semester I broke that rule twice. You've had two opportunities to do a little extra work outside of class and earn extra points toward your grade, but you did not take advantage of those opportunities. My best advice? Time machine.
Note to whoever is responsible for the current weather: New windshield wipers definitely improve my outlook on life (and my ability to see where I'm going through the rain), but could we maybe have a day or two when windshield wipers aren't necessary? I'm not asking for much; just let me see the sun once in a while. (Cue massive drought.)
Note to every student who has e-mailed to ask for extra credit this week: As a rule I don't offer extra credit, but this semester I broke that rule twice. You've had two opportunities to do a little extra work outside of class and earn extra points toward your grade, but you did not take advantage of those opportunities. My best advice? Time machine.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Doerr delivers, in print and in person
 |
| Tony Doerr with then-student Joy Frank-Collins in 2009 |
We invited Doerr here after I had read The Shell Collector and recommended it to colleagues and just after he had published Four Seasons In Rome (which I reviewed here). While here, he read portions of the story "Memory Wall," which became the title piece in his second collection of short stories (which I reviewed here). At his reading, he told us that writers try to draw readers into a dream and hope they don't wake up (read about it here).
His acclaimed novel All the Light We Cannot See weaves together the dreams of a young German soldier and a blind French girl during World War II, touching on many themes common to Doerr's work: memory, alienation, human suffering, and the moments of meaning and beauty that bridge the distances between people and across time. The novel well deserves the Pulitzer and I hope it will draw more readers to his other work as well, but I will always think of Tony Doerr as the guy who sat with our students and talked about their writing with an intensity and insight other writers might reserve for their own work.
He treated our students like writers. In my book, there is no greater prize.
Monday, April 20, 2015
Countdown
Two weeks left, and one is finals week! It's almost over! How many essential activities can I squeeze into a mere two weeks?
Classes to teach: 8
Extra optional bonus workshop on documentation to lead: 1
Drafts to read/respond to: 17
Exams to write: 2
Exams to grade: 28
Papers to grade: 17
Reading quiz to write: 1
Reading quizzes to grade: 17
Extra optional bonus reading quiz to write: 1
Extra optional bonus reading quizzes to grade: some number between 0 and 17
Meetings to attend: 9
Meetings I fully intend to skip: 1
Colloquium talk to polish and present: 1
Anthology chapter to revise and submit: 1
Grades to calculate: all of 'em
Hairs to pull out: not all of 'em (I hope)
See,that's not so much. I can handle it as long as my house cleans itself and the lawn stops growing. Piece of cake with ice cream on the side!
Classes to teach: 8
Extra optional bonus workshop on documentation to lead: 1
Drafts to read/respond to: 17
Exams to write: 2
Exams to grade: 28
Papers to grade: 17
Reading quiz to write: 1
Reading quizzes to grade: 17
Extra optional bonus reading quiz to write: 1
Extra optional bonus reading quizzes to grade: some number between 0 and 17
Meetings to attend: 9
Meetings I fully intend to skip: 1
Colloquium talk to polish and present: 1
Anthology chapter to revise and submit: 1
Grades to calculate: all of 'em
Hairs to pull out: not all of 'em (I hope)
See,that's not so much. I can handle it as long as my house cleans itself and the lawn stops growing. Piece of cake with ice cream on the side!
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Color on the wing
A flash of blue, a hint of rust--an eastern bluebird emerges from a box alongside the highway and disappears into the nearby woods. I wonder whether the bird sees me too, whether its eye is drawn to the flash of blue (but no hint of rust) that is my car zooming down the highway.
A splash of green and red outside my living-room window--a hummingbird, the first of the season, looking for the feeder that we haven't taken time to hang out there just yet. We hear and obey: time to brew some nectar.
Every glance out the window lights on color: a horde of goldfinches feeding on thistle, a fat yellow bee buzzing around the shrubs, a brown-headed cowbird coordinating nicely with the reddish-brown spots on the brown thrasher's breast. The dead brown ground is greening up. Time to get out and mow! Hope the noise doesn't blow the birds away.
A splash of green and red outside my living-room window--a hummingbird, the first of the season, looking for the feeder that we haven't taken time to hang out there just yet. We hear and obey: time to brew some nectar.
Every glance out the window lights on color: a horde of goldfinches feeding on thistle, a fat yellow bee buzzing around the shrubs, a brown-headed cowbird coordinating nicely with the reddish-brown spots on the brown thrasher's breast. The dead brown ground is greening up. Time to get out and mow! Hope the noise doesn't blow the birds away.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
On not knowing what we don't know
At first glance, it appears that the primary problem in this pile of student drafts is that my students just don't know what they're doing, but that would be wrong. Most of my students know some of what they're trying to do but none of them know all of it and, more seriously, they don't know what they don't know and therefore they don't know how to find solutions to the questions they don't know they need to ask.
By this point in the semester they ought to know some things really well, like how to punctuate and cite quotations, which is why I get frustrated when I have to remind them to go back and review the quotation handout that the class covered thoroughly back in January and reviewed several times since then. I post all those handouts on the class website for a reason: because I refuse to re-teach the concepts individually to every student on every paper. Some of my students are probably sick of hearing me tell them to go look at the handout first and then come to me if they have more questions, but they'd save us all a lot of time and angst if they'd just go look at the stinking handout.
It's less easy at this point to try to re-teach the difference between summary and analysis; I can't do that in a handout or in a marginal note on a draft, and if they haven't mastered it by this point, how much can they improve in the next seven days? Nevertheless I'm telling them, for instance, that there's not much point in identifying metaphors if they're not going to unpack the implications of those metaphors and examine how they contribute to meaning. Naming things is not enough! Let's shake 'em upside-down and see what falls out.
(Which provides another metaphor they'll need to unpack. Practice makes perfect!)
And then we have the whole complicated issue of citing sources, which is a problem when some students don't even know what those sources are. Asked to produce articles from peer-reviewed academic journals, students find book reviews or quote from the article abstracts they find in the library's research databases, suggesting that on the internet, no one knows if a source is a dog. And then I'm once again explaining to a student that the word "Print" in a Works Cited listing means that he has relied on an actual hard copy of a text with pages that turn and therefore have actual printed page numbers that ought to appear in parenthetical citations, and I'm hearing, "Oh, so that's what 'Print' means. I guess I don't have any print sources." I guess not. Time to go find some!
And don't even get me started on the student who assures me that no one has ever written anything about a particular topic when a cursory search would reveal that among the many scholars who have examined that topic is, ahem, your obt. svt.
But we are all still learning, aren't we? I'm learning diplomatic ways to tell students to go back and do it right this time, and they're learning the consequences of not having learned some essential skills earlier in the semester. So far, I give myself a B+. The students' grades will have to wait until after they revise their drafts.
By this point in the semester they ought to know some things really well, like how to punctuate and cite quotations, which is why I get frustrated when I have to remind them to go back and review the quotation handout that the class covered thoroughly back in January and reviewed several times since then. I post all those handouts on the class website for a reason: because I refuse to re-teach the concepts individually to every student on every paper. Some of my students are probably sick of hearing me tell them to go look at the handout first and then come to me if they have more questions, but they'd save us all a lot of time and angst if they'd just go look at the stinking handout.
It's less easy at this point to try to re-teach the difference between summary and analysis; I can't do that in a handout or in a marginal note on a draft, and if they haven't mastered it by this point, how much can they improve in the next seven days? Nevertheless I'm telling them, for instance, that there's not much point in identifying metaphors if they're not going to unpack the implications of those metaphors and examine how they contribute to meaning. Naming things is not enough! Let's shake 'em upside-down and see what falls out.
(Which provides another metaphor they'll need to unpack. Practice makes perfect!)
And then we have the whole complicated issue of citing sources, which is a problem when some students don't even know what those sources are. Asked to produce articles from peer-reviewed academic journals, students find book reviews or quote from the article abstracts they find in the library's research databases, suggesting that on the internet, no one knows if a source is a dog. And then I'm once again explaining to a student that the word "Print" in a Works Cited listing means that he has relied on an actual hard copy of a text with pages that turn and therefore have actual printed page numbers that ought to appear in parenthetical citations, and I'm hearing, "Oh, so that's what 'Print' means. I guess I don't have any print sources." I guess not. Time to go find some!
And don't even get me started on the student who assures me that no one has ever written anything about a particular topic when a cursory search would reveal that among the many scholars who have examined that topic is, ahem, your obt. svt.
But we are all still learning, aren't we? I'm learning diplomatic ways to tell students to go back and do it right this time, and they're learning the consequences of not having learned some essential skills earlier in the semester. So far, I give myself a B+. The students' grades will have to wait until after they revise their drafts.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Blossom time--for students and wildflowers
All Scholars' Day brings out the best in our students--their best suits and ties or dresses and heels, their best presentation skills, creative ideas, and enthusiasm for learning. This morning I heard students describe results of research into fruit fly development, learning disorders, and the impact of romantic fiction on attitudes toward domestic violence, and I heard artists describe the impetus behind their painting, photography, or graphic design projects. I learned about tendencies toward depression among migrant farm workers and I marvelled that students I knew as raw freshmen are doing research on topics that can make a real difference in the world.
Then I went home and stomped around in the mud to see how our long, bleak winter affected the wildflower population, and I'm pleased to report that things are booming on the wildflower front. I saw trout lilies, trilliums, wide swaths of blooming bloodroot, dutchman's breeches, squirrel corn, coltsfoot, and even some perfoliate bellwort blooming where I've never seen it before. I saw a few delicate fronds of Solomon's seal sprouting from the wet hillside, and I enjoyed once again the delicate pinks and greens of buckeye buds popping open.
It's hard to believe in trilliums in the dead of winter, but here they come again just when I need them. Likewise, the chill wind blowing through academe may fill me with gloom, but here comes a whole crop of talented students to prove that what we're doing still matters.
So I'm going to try to stop griping and bloom where I'm planted--even if I'll never be as adorable as a clump of perfoliate bellwort.
A lasting blow
Two nights in a row I've awakened in a cold sweat from nightmares of thwarted communication: I'm writing a book offering advice to first-year students and the manuscript is due at the printers but I haven't finished the first chapter, or I'm struggling to produce a newsletter for a scholarly organization that suffers from a severe dearth of news. These dreams suggest, I think, continued angst over campus events too sensitive to be fully bloggable.
The good news is that several endangered programs seem to have escaped the chopping block--for now. The bad news is that a group of junior faculty members serving in threatened departments have seen the writing on the wall and announced that they will be leaving at the end of the semester, all for perfectly understandable reasons: to take a better job, to be closer to family, to live in a less--er, more culturally vibrant location. Nevertheless, these departures represent a real blow to the College, a blow that will echo far into the future.
Why? Because my departing colleagues are all champions of the liberal arts and really terrific teachers, mostly on tenure lines, who contribute to campus in a variety of essential ways inside and outside the classroom. Not all of them will be replaced immediately, raising questions about whether those tenure lines will be lost and how that will affect the future viability of certain programs. Departments permitted to fill these suddenly empty spaces will be searching for one-year replacements; since contingent faculty are not expected to serve on committees, this will reduce the number of faculty available to staff the committees that will work very hard to help the college emerge from its current difficulties. And in the long term, these departures create a serious age and experience gap and decimate faculty diversity. Even after we emerge from the current budget crisis as a stronger and healthier institution (as I sincerely hope we will do), I don't know how we will fill those gaps or regain those losses.
Last semester a committee I chaired sent a letter to top administrators pointing out the outstanding level of teaching skills on campus but warning that we would have difficulty holding on to these terrific teachers if conditions continued to deteriorate, and while the administrators agreed that our concerns were valid, it was probably already too late to prevent the current exodus of talented colleagues. I love my job and I believe in the future of the institution, but before I can roll up my sleeves to start working toward recovery, I'm taking a little time to mourn our losses.
The good news is that several endangered programs seem to have escaped the chopping block--for now. The bad news is that a group of junior faculty members serving in threatened departments have seen the writing on the wall and announced that they will be leaving at the end of the semester, all for perfectly understandable reasons: to take a better job, to be closer to family, to live in a less--er, more culturally vibrant location. Nevertheless, these departures represent a real blow to the College, a blow that will echo far into the future.
Why? Because my departing colleagues are all champions of the liberal arts and really terrific teachers, mostly on tenure lines, who contribute to campus in a variety of essential ways inside and outside the classroom. Not all of them will be replaced immediately, raising questions about whether those tenure lines will be lost and how that will affect the future viability of certain programs. Departments permitted to fill these suddenly empty spaces will be searching for one-year replacements; since contingent faculty are not expected to serve on committees, this will reduce the number of faculty available to staff the committees that will work very hard to help the college emerge from its current difficulties. And in the long term, these departures create a serious age and experience gap and decimate faculty diversity. Even after we emerge from the current budget crisis as a stronger and healthier institution (as I sincerely hope we will do), I don't know how we will fill those gaps or regain those losses.
Last semester a committee I chaired sent a letter to top administrators pointing out the outstanding level of teaching skills on campus but warning that we would have difficulty holding on to these terrific teachers if conditions continued to deteriorate, and while the administrators agreed that our concerns were valid, it was probably already too late to prevent the current exodus of talented colleagues. I love my job and I believe in the future of the institution, but before I can roll up my sleeves to start working toward recovery, I'm taking a little time to mourn our losses.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Writing on an obstacle course
A financial windfall never covers as many purchases as I expect, so I shouldn't be surprised when a gift of unscheduled time fails to accommodate as many projects as I'd like. In the distance it looms toward eternity, a big blank spot on the calendar, but as time goes on I pencil in projects and meetings and other commitments. Three whole free days! I can do anything.
But I can't. I can write a chunk of an essay before running to a meeting and then write a letter of support for a student before going to another meeting and then maybe scribble a little more on that essay before the jazz concert tonight. And then tomorrow? All Scholars' Day: I'll support students' research projects by attending presentations scheduled at various points in the day starting at 9 and ending at 5, but I do some more writing in those odd-shaped hours tucked between presentations.
And then Thursday? One class and then a whole lot of writing time to finish the essay that's due at the end of next week--except I also have student drafts coming in and a pile of papers to grade.
So my three relatively free days to focus on writing have turned into three days of snatching a few moments to write here and there between other important (and therefore distracting) events. My big empty landscape somehow got crowded with obstacles! Fortunately, there's nothing like a looming deadline to keep me focused while traversing those welcome empty stretches between all the obstacles.
But I can't. I can write a chunk of an essay before running to a meeting and then write a letter of support for a student before going to another meeting and then maybe scribble a little more on that essay before the jazz concert tonight. And then tomorrow? All Scholars' Day: I'll support students' research projects by attending presentations scheduled at various points in the day starting at 9 and ending at 5, but I do some more writing in those odd-shaped hours tucked between presentations.
And then Thursday? One class and then a whole lot of writing time to finish the essay that's due at the end of next week--except I also have student drafts coming in and a pile of papers to grade.
So my three relatively free days to focus on writing have turned into three days of snatching a few moments to write here and there between other important (and therefore distracting) events. My big empty landscape somehow got crowded with obstacles! Fortunately, there's nothing like a looming deadline to keep me focused while traversing those welcome empty stretches between all the obstacles.
Monday, April 13, 2015
The recognitions
 |
| Pinecone, anyone? |
I don't particularly like the little girl I was, the one who was always embarrassed by her clothes and who couldn't stand coming home to an ugly house but lied about loving it to protect her parents' feelings (when they had so many burdens to carry that the little girl's dislike for that house would not have even registered a blip on their radar screens), and I'm also not especially fond of the adolescent know-it-all who confronts me in an old note to a friend, the smarty-pants trying to turn every iota of pain into comedy.
But maybe it's time to embrace the little girls who turned into the adult me. Somewhere deep inside I'm still carrying their pain, but maybe it's time to say "there, there" and let it go. I wouldn't want to pass that pain on to the next generation, which has other things on its mind: spring puddles and potty training and singing singing singing. I recognize the tune and no one can stop me from singing along.
Thursday, April 09, 2015
So much water so close to home
Ah, the sounds of a spring morning: the birds cheeping; the spring peepers peeping; the creek roaring...
Wait a minute: if I can hear the creek roaring while I'm lying in bed, then something is amiss. What did all that dramatic thunder, lightning, and rain do to my calm little creek?
Turn on the radio: flood warnings, school delays, further rain in the forecast. Will I make it to campus?
My creek is over its banks but hasn't quite reached the driveway or covered the bridge. I drive between farm fields that have turned into sudden lakes, skirt overflowing ditched and debris washed over the road, and make it to campus, where more rain keeps the morning dim and gloomy.
If the rain keeps up I may have trouble getting home later on, but inside my office I'm warm and dry and surrounded by books. I just hope I don't have to sleep here tonight!
Wait a minute: if I can hear the creek roaring while I'm lying in bed, then something is amiss. What did all that dramatic thunder, lightning, and rain do to my calm little creek?
Turn on the radio: flood warnings, school delays, further rain in the forecast. Will I make it to campus?
My creek is over its banks but hasn't quite reached the driveway or covered the bridge. I drive between farm fields that have turned into sudden lakes, skirt overflowing ditched and debris washed over the road, and make it to campus, where more rain keeps the morning dim and gloomy.
If the rain keeps up I may have trouble getting home later on, but inside my office I'm warm and dry and surrounded by books. I just hope I don't have to sleep here tonight!
Wednesday, April 08, 2015
How do I shut up the internal critic?
When I start urging my husband to stop being so darned reasonable, you know I need some help disabling my tiny puritans.
They live in my brain, these tiny puritans, passed down through generations of workaholics suspicious of pleasure. Their squeaky little voices shriek at me that I'm not working hard enough or wasting time on silly things or being selfish. They shriek loudest when I'm thinking about spending money on something frivolous instead of saving for a rainy day or putting it to more practical use. If I want to spend money on myself, they kick and scream and ask what I've ever done to deserve something so nice.
You can't reason with the tiny puritans that live in my brain because they simply don't care about reason. Right now they're jumping up and down angrily simply because I'm thinking about buying a new camera, which would be a perfectly reasonable purchase, but they don't care. Selfish, they say. What did you ever do to deserve a new camera? You broke the old one!
This is true: it took me more than a year to quiet the tiny puritans enough to permit myself to buy a canoe--a used canoe--which anyone who knows me would tell you was the smartest purchase I've ever made. The tiny puritans wanted me to spend the money on paying down some debts, which would be prudent and reasonable, but here's the thing: the canoe money came out of the sky when I won our college's top prize for excellence in teaching. I earned it! If winning our top teaching prize is not evidence that I deserve a (used) canoe, then something is wrong with the universe.
So now I need a new camera but the tiny puritans are having a hissy fit. Even when my husband marshals all the reasons, the tiny puritans can't be persuaded that it wouldn't be selfish and frivolous and not at all deserved. They are loud and annoying and they won't leave me alone.
Someone needs to beat them to a pulp, those tiny puritans, or at least bind and gag them long enough to let me have some fun. But where do I put out a contract on my tiny puritans?
They live in my brain, these tiny puritans, passed down through generations of workaholics suspicious of pleasure. Their squeaky little voices shriek at me that I'm not working hard enough or wasting time on silly things or being selfish. They shriek loudest when I'm thinking about spending money on something frivolous instead of saving for a rainy day or putting it to more practical use. If I want to spend money on myself, they kick and scream and ask what I've ever done to deserve something so nice.
You can't reason with the tiny puritans that live in my brain because they simply don't care about reason. Right now they're jumping up and down angrily simply because I'm thinking about buying a new camera, which would be a perfectly reasonable purchase, but they don't care. Selfish, they say. What did you ever do to deserve a new camera? You broke the old one!
This is true: it took me more than a year to quiet the tiny puritans enough to permit myself to buy a canoe--a used canoe--which anyone who knows me would tell you was the smartest purchase I've ever made. The tiny puritans wanted me to spend the money on paying down some debts, which would be prudent and reasonable, but here's the thing: the canoe money came out of the sky when I won our college's top prize for excellence in teaching. I earned it! If winning our top teaching prize is not evidence that I deserve a (used) canoe, then something is wrong with the universe.
So now I need a new camera but the tiny puritans are having a hissy fit. Even when my husband marshals all the reasons, the tiny puritans can't be persuaded that it wouldn't be selfish and frivolous and not at all deserved. They are loud and annoying and they won't leave me alone.
Someone needs to beat them to a pulp, those tiny puritans, or at least bind and gag them long enough to let me have some fun. But where do I put out a contract on my tiny puritans?
Tuesday, April 07, 2015
Running out of words
Ineffable, anthropomorphic, symbiosis, syncretism--all words I've written on the board in classes this week, and if you think it's easy to define ineffable in terms a freshman would understand, go ahead and give it a try. A.R. Ammons once claimed that "Nothing that can be said about [poetry] in words is worth saying," but I haven't yet figured out how we're supposed to talk about poetry without words.
Semaphore?
And speaking of words, a student this morning had trouble with the word nestles, pronouncing it nest-less. A freshman shoved rudely out of a warm, cozy home without a reading habit might well feel nestless, lacking words to describe the ineffability of her overwhelmedness, but the cure is to nestle into a world of books, starting, perhaps, with the dictionary.
But this is the time of the semester when words fail. We're all too tired, too busy, or too lacking in energy to seek out the words we need. I find myself speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in this naked and endless head--or wait, that's not me; that's Allen Ginsberg.
Semaphore?
And speaking of words, a student this morning had trouble with the word nestles, pronouncing it nest-less. A freshman shoved rudely out of a warm, cozy home without a reading habit might well feel nestless, lacking words to describe the ineffability of her overwhelmedness, but the cure is to nestle into a world of books, starting, perhaps, with the dictionary.
But this is the time of the semester when words fail. We're all too tired, too busy, or too lacking in energy to seek out the words we need. I find myself speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in this naked and endless head--or wait, that's not me; that's Allen Ginsberg.
Saturday, April 04, 2015
Shutting down the shutterbug
My camera has accompanied me to woods and wetlands, beaches and big cities from Seattle to Florida, San Francisco to Prague. It has photographed alligators, bloodroot, cabbages, daffodils, eagles, flickers, grasshoppers, herons, indigo buntings, jewel weed, kingfishers, limpkins, mullein, nuthatches, orioles, pelicans, queen anne's lace, redbuds, seagulls, trout lilies, unidentified flittery things, veronica, warblers, xylobolus, yarrow, zebras, and more.
My camera has helped preserve the memories of my daughter's wedding, my son's college commencement, my granddaughter's birth and growth and puddle-jumping. I have taken my camera to college poetry readings, class field trips, church dinners, and long walks in the woods with my birding-and-botanizing colleague.
And now it's heading for the landfill.
I fell. Stepped in a bit of mud the wrong way and landed--hard--on hands and knees. The camera landed in the creek, in pieces.
The pieces are sitting on a towel to dry off, but their condition does not appear compatible with survival. I don't quite know what I'll do without a camera with trillium season right around the corner followed by my adorable granddaughter's two-year-old birthday, but I'm not prepared to make that big a decision when my entire body hurts.
Not to mention my pride.
I fell hard in mud in front of other people and broke the camera that has been my faithful companion through thick and thin for seven years--I think I've earned the right to sit in the corner and lick my wounds for a little while.
And the worst part is, I can't even show you a picture.
My camera has helped preserve the memories of my daughter's wedding, my son's college commencement, my granddaughter's birth and growth and puddle-jumping. I have taken my camera to college poetry readings, class field trips, church dinners, and long walks in the woods with my birding-and-botanizing colleague.
And now it's heading for the landfill.
I fell. Stepped in a bit of mud the wrong way and landed--hard--on hands and knees. The camera landed in the creek, in pieces.
The pieces are sitting on a towel to dry off, but their condition does not appear compatible with survival. I don't quite know what I'll do without a camera with trillium season right around the corner followed by my adorable granddaughter's two-year-old birthday, but I'm not prepared to make that big a decision when my entire body hurts.
Not to mention my pride.
I fell hard in mud in front of other people and broke the camera that has been my faithful companion through thick and thin for seven years--I think I've earned the right to sit in the corner and lick my wounds for a little while.
And the worst part is, I can't even show you a picture.
Thursday, April 02, 2015
Pop quiz!
"Sorry, we're out of everything--but we have everything else!"
In what context would the above statement make perfect sense?
Wednesday, April 01, 2015
Prized plumage
 |
| White ibises were all over the place. |
--But not too familiarly. Last week in Florida I saw a family tossing breadcrumbs to a group of ibises alongside a lake. I doubt that stale crusts of Wonder Bread are suited to birds that generally subsist on a diet of crustaceans.
The fact that I've downloaded and sorted these photos suggests that I'm finally caught up on the work I missed last week. I feel as if I've spent the first half of this week running a marathon but now I can take a moment to sit back and savor some beauty.
But not alone. You come too!
 |
| Great egret |
 |
| Ibises in flight look prehistoric |
 |
| Great blue heron |
 |
| Nesting ospreys |
 |
| My first limpkin (of many) |
 |
| Tricolor heron |
Further evidence that teachers ought to be treated like rock stars
Twelve hours into the 24-hour Teach-A-Thon, my colleague admitted to being tired. "This is hard," he said. "I'm used to teaching evening classes, but not after teaching all day long."
Despite his fatigue, he perked up as soon as class started, speaking with animation to a group of eight students eager to learn about Appalachian culture. He stood the whole time and never stopped moving, presenting facts and calling on students to share their stories of Appalachian life. We learned and we laughed and then some went on to other classes while others went home to sleep.
I know I couldn't teach for 24 hours straight, but two of my colleagues started teaching at 8:00 Tuesday morning and taught one 75-minute class after another until 8:00 Wednesday morning. They took a 15-minute break between classes, just long enough to visit the rest room and grab a snack before standing up in front of another group of students.
They taught all day and all night on topics as diverse as American Sign Language, Learning Social Studies through Picture Books, Diversity in the Classroom, and whether Shoeless Joe Jackson ought to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I attended the Appalachia class late last night and then came back to campus early this morning for a class in which we examined various versions of the Cinderella myth and discussed how fairy tales reflect cultural values.
I'd had a few hours of sleep but my colleague teaching the class had been teaching all night long. When we sat down around a table to examine Cinderella books, she realized that that was the first time she had sat down all night.
"This has been an undertaking," she said. She admitted that she had felt a little punch-drunk in the wee hours of the morning, but at 5:30 a.m. she was still going strong, still leading students toward understanding and insight.
Yesterday I tried to talk some colleagues into attending Teach-A-Thon classes and I kept hearing perfectly reasonable excuses: I have to prepare my own classes. I have meetings. I'm really busy. I pointed out that no one is really busy at two in the morning, but I received only patronizing smiles. What kind of idiot would attend a class at two in the morning?
The student body president is that kind of idiot. He knows where to find good teaching! He was in the class I attended Tuesday evening and in the other class I attended Wednesday morning and he had been attending one class after another all night long. Every class had at least one student and some had many more, mostly our own students but also some local public school teachers and other community residents. Eight students showed up for the 4 a.m. class.
The topic was Happiness.
I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know that eight people are willing to attend a class at 4 a.m. to support a good cause: the Pioneer Pipeline project, which brings students with disabilities to campus twice a week for mentoring and learning experiences. It's a cause worthy of full support, but that's not why I went to see my colleagues teach at times when I would normally be sleeping.
I went to class because I value teaching and I believe that anyone who can teach for 24 hours straight deserves a round of applause. These Iron-Man Teachers make me proud to be part of such a demanding and rewarding profession.
(And in case anyone was wondering, 4:30 a.m. is the time to find a great campus parking space.)
Despite his fatigue, he perked up as soon as class started, speaking with animation to a group of eight students eager to learn about Appalachian culture. He stood the whole time and never stopped moving, presenting facts and calling on students to share their stories of Appalachian life. We learned and we laughed and then some went on to other classes while others went home to sleep.
I know I couldn't teach for 24 hours straight, but two of my colleagues started teaching at 8:00 Tuesday morning and taught one 75-minute class after another until 8:00 Wednesday morning. They took a 15-minute break between classes, just long enough to visit the rest room and grab a snack before standing up in front of another group of students.
They taught all day and all night on topics as diverse as American Sign Language, Learning Social Studies through Picture Books, Diversity in the Classroom, and whether Shoeless Joe Jackson ought to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I attended the Appalachia class late last night and then came back to campus early this morning for a class in which we examined various versions of the Cinderella myth and discussed how fairy tales reflect cultural values.
I'd had a few hours of sleep but my colleague teaching the class had been teaching all night long. When we sat down around a table to examine Cinderella books, she realized that that was the first time she had sat down all night.
"This has been an undertaking," she said. She admitted that she had felt a little punch-drunk in the wee hours of the morning, but at 5:30 a.m. she was still going strong, still leading students toward understanding and insight.
Yesterday I tried to talk some colleagues into attending Teach-A-Thon classes and I kept hearing perfectly reasonable excuses: I have to prepare my own classes. I have meetings. I'm really busy. I pointed out that no one is really busy at two in the morning, but I received only patronizing smiles. What kind of idiot would attend a class at two in the morning?
The student body president is that kind of idiot. He knows where to find good teaching! He was in the class I attended Tuesday evening and in the other class I attended Wednesday morning and he had been attending one class after another all night long. Every class had at least one student and some had many more, mostly our own students but also some local public school teachers and other community residents. Eight students showed up for the 4 a.m. class.
The topic was Happiness.
I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know that eight people are willing to attend a class at 4 a.m. to support a good cause: the Pioneer Pipeline project, which brings students with disabilities to campus twice a week for mentoring and learning experiences. It's a cause worthy of full support, but that's not why I went to see my colleagues teach at times when I would normally be sleeping.
I went to class because I value teaching and I believe that anyone who can teach for 24 hours straight deserves a round of applause. These Iron-Man Teachers make me proud to be part of such a demanding and rewarding profession.
(And in case anyone was wondering, 4:30 a.m. is the time to find a great campus parking space.)
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Of cocoons and comfort zones
"You are probably more prepared for this class than I am," I told my honors students this morning--not an easy admission to make, but all too true. I had done the reading and prepared some preliminary questions but I lacked the usual ream of notes telling me where to find the important passages in a novel I've never taught before. I had intended to assemble those notes during my trip to Florida last week. Then my computer died.
I don't often walk into class as unprepared as I did this morning. Fortunately, my students had completed a writing assignment in response to the novel, which provided a foundation for an intense and insightful class discussion. I explained my plight. They commiserated. They have been in my shoes.
This afternoon I stepped into my students' shoes and gave a presentation in the art history class I've been taking. I don't generally get nervous standing in front of a group of students, but this time I was outside my area of expertise, talking about art that tries to make sense of the aftermath of violence. I talked too fast. I fumbled with my notes. I worried about whether my hair was okay, why I was repeating myself, where to find the button for the laser pointer. And I'm not even taking the class for a grade!
Crawling out from my protective cocoon of expertise can be painful; I fear that spreading new wings may reveal their flaws. But it's good sometimes to see the classroom experience from the perspective of students, to know the panic of unpreparedness and drip with the sweat of public performance. And then it's really, really good to walk away afterward and know that it's over and that it was not nearly as awful as I'd feared.
Forget stepping outside the comfort zone. Let's just work on moving its borders ever outward.
I don't often walk into class as unprepared as I did this morning. Fortunately, my students had completed a writing assignment in response to the novel, which provided a foundation for an intense and insightful class discussion. I explained my plight. They commiserated. They have been in my shoes.
This afternoon I stepped into my students' shoes and gave a presentation in the art history class I've been taking. I don't generally get nervous standing in front of a group of students, but this time I was outside my area of expertise, talking about art that tries to make sense of the aftermath of violence. I talked too fast. I fumbled with my notes. I worried about whether my hair was okay, why I was repeating myself, where to find the button for the laser pointer. And I'm not even taking the class for a grade!
Crawling out from my protective cocoon of expertise can be painful; I fear that spreading new wings may reveal their flaws. But it's good sometimes to see the classroom experience from the perspective of students, to know the panic of unpreparedness and drip with the sweat of public performance. And then it's really, really good to walk away afterward and know that it's over and that it was not nearly as awful as I'd feared.
Forget stepping outside the comfort zone. Let's just work on moving its borders ever outward.
Monday, March 30, 2015
On the De-Etch-A-Sketchification of my life
When our IT crowd got hold of my nonresponsive computer this morning, they managed to get it to power on only after shaking it up and down like an Etch-A-Sketch, and then they had to examine its inner workings to determine why it had suddenly entered Etch-A-Sketch mode. Project De-Etch-A-Sketchification had begun!
Now, though, after four days with no computer, I am finally up and running, in gratitude for which I utter a weak Hurrah. Lugging that dead computer through airports and airplanes all day yesterday took a lot out of me, and this morning I've been scrambling so frantically to catch up on all the work I couldn't do without my computer that I was ready to collapse by noon.
But I'm still working. The really important stuff is done but I need to respond to a few more student drafts before I can consider myself sufficiently caught up. For motivation, I'm delaying a wonderful reward until after I'm done responding to drafts: downloading the zillions of photos I took in Florida. Limpkins! Ibises! Frank Lloyd Wright buildings! It's all good.
Meanwhile, I need to collect all the random thoughts scattered like sand across the Etch-A-Sketch screen of my travel-weary mind. A few tidbits:
Now, though, after four days with no computer, I am finally up and running, in gratitude for which I utter a weak Hurrah. Lugging that dead computer through airports and airplanes all day yesterday took a lot out of me, and this morning I've been scrambling so frantically to catch up on all the work I couldn't do without my computer that I was ready to collapse by noon.
But I'm still working. The really important stuff is done but I need to respond to a few more student drafts before I can consider myself sufficiently caught up. For motivation, I'm delaying a wonderful reward until after I'm done responding to drafts: downloading the zillions of photos I took in Florida. Limpkins! Ibises! Frank Lloyd Wright buildings! It's all good.
Meanwhile, I need to collect all the random thoughts scattered like sand across the Etch-A-Sketch screen of my travel-weary mind. A few tidbits:
- People who insist on carrying on loud cell-phone conversations for hours at a time in airport terminals should be required to say something entertaining on pain of death. I can listen to drivel for only so long before I want to kick someone, in which case I would be arrested for assault, but what about the person who insists on assaulting my ears with endless yammering about nothing in particular?
- I heard a radio ad for a company called Aggressive Appliances, and I wondered who would want, for instance, a washing machine that spits suds in your face or a refrigerator that slams the freezer door shut on your hand when you try to grab Klondike bar. What would be worse than an Aggressive Appliance? How about a Passive-Aggressive Appliance: "Fine, go ahead and eat the Klondike Bar. See if I care. But don't come running to me when you can't fit into your swimsuit!"
- I'm driving through a lovely rural area in the very flat part of Florida when I spot in the distance a green hill with flocks of birds circling the summit. I wonder what hill it could be and whether it would be worth exploring. Then I catch a whiff of the stink and note the garbage trucks crawling up the slope. Who wants to sign up for the Mount Landfill trek?
- If the airlines insist on delaying my flight so that I have to sprint from one end of a huge terminal to the extreme opposite end while carrying a backpack and computer bag, the least they could do is offer a water bottle and a free T-shirt.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Heeding the call of the limpkin
Given a destination, a deadline, and a mostly free day, why take the most direct route? This morning I've been making my way semi-aimlessly through the parts of Florida tourists tend to miss. Once I'd left behind ThemeParkWorld traffic and areas densely populated with garishly colored hotels featuring faux-medieval turrets, I found myself in the part of Florida where you're more likely to see pickup trucks than Porsches.
Heard on the radio that a big rodeo is going on this weekend in Kissimmee, and my travels took me through the part of the state where cattle ranching is still a going concern. I had a great morning hike at Circle B Bar Reserve, a nature preserve on a former cattle ranch, where I saw nesting eagles, herons, ibises, alligators, egrets, and my very first wild limpkins. (Photos to follow eventually.) The call of the limpkin is like something out of a horror flick; you half expect to see Godzilla creeping up behind you, but it's just this lovely brownish bird.
I worked up a pretty good sweat so now I'm taking a break with a smoothie at a MacDonald's in Bartow, where the music loop leans heavily toward Johnny Cash. Next on my meandering route is a visit to Bok Tower, where I'll hike a bit before enjoying a picnic lunch during the hillside carillon concert.
I keep reminding myself that this is a business trip. This evening I'll have to take a good long look at my paper and find some chunks to cut, and maybe I'll even iron my blouse for tomorrow. But who can think about editing or ironing when limpkins and carillons are calling?
Heard on the radio that a big rodeo is going on this weekend in Kissimmee, and my travels took me through the part of the state where cattle ranching is still a going concern. I had a great morning hike at Circle B Bar Reserve, a nature preserve on a former cattle ranch, where I saw nesting eagles, herons, ibises, alligators, egrets, and my very first wild limpkins. (Photos to follow eventually.) The call of the limpkin is like something out of a horror flick; you half expect to see Godzilla creeping up behind you, but it's just this lovely brownish bird.
I worked up a pretty good sweat so now I'm taking a break with a smoothie at a MacDonald's in Bartow, where the music loop leans heavily toward Johnny Cash. Next on my meandering route is a visit to Bok Tower, where I'll hike a bit before enjoying a picnic lunch during the hillside carillon concert.
I keep reminding myself that this is a business trip. This evening I'll have to take a good long look at my paper and find some chunks to cut, and maybe I'll even iron my blouse for tomorrow. But who can think about editing or ironing when limpkins and carillons are calling?
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
A few peeves from Passenger Huge
I love to travel--in theory. Love the idea of getting away from my dirty house, demanding students, and pesky piles of papers and heading south toward sunshine, friends, and all the fun of an academic conference.
However, I'm not a fan of airport parking, airport security, airport food prices, or really anything about the airport itself, most especially the ticket agent's difficulty in pronouncing my name so that when the call goes out for "Passenger Huge," I have to step up and say "I think that's me." When it really isn't. Not at all.
And don't even get me started on my poor wardrobe choice. I remembered to wear slip-on shoes for ease at security, but I had no idea that a little lovely beading around the neckline of my blouse would look threatening to an airport x-ray machine. Yes: full pat-down in public just because I had to go with the beaded blouse.
And how hard did I have to work this week to clear the decks for this trip? I won't be back until Sunday evening but I didn't want to carry two bricklike Norton anthologies on the airplane, so I spent the first part of this week dealing with this week's work while also preparing next Monday's classes. Nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, and fingers tap-tapping on the keyboard to cut my conference paper down to a presentable length.
I love academic conferences--in theory. Meeting of minds, exposure to new ideas, networking with interesting people inside and outside my field, plus a little time to see the sights. But in practice, I'm not a fan of working like a maniac to write a brilliant paper only to deliver it in a big room populated by an audience of two people.
But I have high hopes for this conference. It's a small but devoted group and I'm presenting at a good time--and even if the conference is a flop, I'll still be in Florida. We had snow in Ohio yesterday and more in the forecast for tonight. I doubt that I'll encounter any snow in Florida. Instead, I'll have time for a brief visit with my parents and some relaxation with an old friend in a beautiful location.
And best of all, I won't have to answer to "Passenger Huge."
Monday, March 23, 2015
When reading for pleasure isn't
Last night in a social setting I struggled to respond to a simple question: "What are you reading these days?" It's true that I'm reading a lot, but I'm always reading a lot--reading is what I do, and I occasionally have to stop and thank my lucky stars that I found an employer willing to pay me for pursuing my love of reading.
But there's a difference between reading for pleasure and reading for work, and right now I'm finding much more pleasure in my work-related reading than elsewhere.
Thanks to some kind of harmonic convergence of syllabi, my three classes have recently been tackling A Streetcar Named Desire, The Awakening, and Their Eyes Were Watching God--and the Streetcar class today switched over to Fences. Last week I found myself asking similar questions in all three classes and wondering what would happen if Blanche Dubois, Edna Pontellier, Janie Woods, and Rose Maxson could sit down for a chat while their assorted menfolk play a game of poker in the next room. What could be more fun than that?
But my casual reading has been significantly less delightful lately. In search of a different text for the Sports Literature class, I read The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, which offers many amusing moments but falls apart about halfway through. No chance I'll assign this book for a freshman literature class--first, because it's more than 400 pages long, and second, because I doubt that first-semester students in a Sports Lit class are capable of discussing a sexual fling between a college president and a college baseball player with any degree of maturity. And besides, if I make anyone read a 450-page book, they had better be some pretty riveting pages, which these often aren't.
So forget sports; let's take a look at Happy are the Happy by Yasmina Reza: interesting characters, compelling voices, unusual structure, but in the end I just can't care about these people's lives or their affairs or their cheese preferences. I'm just over halfway through, so I've committed too much time to the book to just abandon it altogether, but I have to force myself to keep reading.
But guess what's coming up next in my classes? The Red Badge of Courage! Life of Pi! Short stories by Louise Erdrich, Alice Walker, and Jhumpa Lahiri! Now that's exciting! How could my non-work-related reading possibly live up to that level of pleasure?
But there's a difference between reading for pleasure and reading for work, and right now I'm finding much more pleasure in my work-related reading than elsewhere.
Thanks to some kind of harmonic convergence of syllabi, my three classes have recently been tackling A Streetcar Named Desire, The Awakening, and Their Eyes Were Watching God--and the Streetcar class today switched over to Fences. Last week I found myself asking similar questions in all three classes and wondering what would happen if Blanche Dubois, Edna Pontellier, Janie Woods, and Rose Maxson could sit down for a chat while their assorted menfolk play a game of poker in the next room. What could be more fun than that?
But my casual reading has been significantly less delightful lately. In search of a different text for the Sports Literature class, I read The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, which offers many amusing moments but falls apart about halfway through. No chance I'll assign this book for a freshman literature class--first, because it's more than 400 pages long, and second, because I doubt that first-semester students in a Sports Lit class are capable of discussing a sexual fling between a college president and a college baseball player with any degree of maturity. And besides, if I make anyone read a 450-page book, they had better be some pretty riveting pages, which these often aren't.
So forget sports; let's take a look at Happy are the Happy by Yasmina Reza: interesting characters, compelling voices, unusual structure, but in the end I just can't care about these people's lives or their affairs or their cheese preferences. I'm just over halfway through, so I've committed too much time to the book to just abandon it altogether, but I have to force myself to keep reading.
But guess what's coming up next in my classes? The Red Badge of Courage! Life of Pi! Short stories by Louise Erdrich, Alice Walker, and Jhumpa Lahiri! Now that's exciting! How could my non-work-related reading possibly live up to that level of pleasure?
Friday, March 20, 2015
Flailing toward flight
On the way home today I stopped to visit two bald eagles, marveled over a flock of turkey vultures wheeling majestically over my neighbor's cow pasture, and opened the door to find a great blue heron perched in a tree just above my creek. That's springtime in Ohio!I've been observing this pair of bald eagles for weeks, viewing them almost daily on a tree above the Muskingum. I haven't been able to stop and visit, though, because first the highway shoulder was covered in snow and then the river was up over its banks. Today I was determined to get a closer look, even though it required walking down a muddy slope from which the river has only recently withdrawn. The river is still swollen there, with barrels, tree limbs, and other debris bobbing in the swift current, but the eagles perch above and watch, unperturbed by high water, mud, traffic, or a curious onlooker.
The turkey vultures have been returning slowly; I've spotted a few solitaries here and there and two weeks ago I saw more a little further south in Kentucky. This week, though, they are back en masse, swooping above the meadows or perching in trees to await the next tasty bit of road kill. Up close they're quite ugly but the sight of a flock of vultures circling high above never fails to impress.
And suddenly, herons. They've been traveling from somewhere semitropical and they may have miles to go before they sleep, but I'm delighted that one decided to rest a spell right there in my creek. But of course it couldn't stay long: I tried to creep silently down the slope so as not to scare the heron, but I was still wearing my teaching shoes, which are not conducive to walking downhill in mud. I may have indulged in a bit of flailing.
But I did not take flight. I concede that privilege to the birds.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
A little Q&A
Because people keep asking:
Do you intend to apply for the provost's position?
Absolutely not. From what I've observed, it appears that provosts spend a lot of their time doing two things I absolutely hate: listening to complaints and talking on the phone. Frankly, I'd rather be teaching.
Do you want to be elected to Faculty Council?
To me, serving on Faculty Council is like going to the dentist: wanting doesn't enter into the discussion, but I'll do it if necessary for the good of the institution.
How do you feel about proposed cuts to academic programs?
Angry. Appalled. Aggrieved. Agitated. Annoyed. And those are just the A words.
Any ideas for trimming the college's budget?
Any cuts must start at the top with administrative salaries. While I realize that taking a voluntary pay cut would be a purely symbolic gesture, symbols matter. Those of us struggling in the trenches would appreciate knowing that we're not alone.
That is all. Now let's get back to work.
Do you intend to apply for the provost's position?
Absolutely not. From what I've observed, it appears that provosts spend a lot of their time doing two things I absolutely hate: listening to complaints and talking on the phone. Frankly, I'd rather be teaching.
Do you want to be elected to Faculty Council?
To me, serving on Faculty Council is like going to the dentist: wanting doesn't enter into the discussion, but I'll do it if necessary for the good of the institution.
How do you feel about proposed cuts to academic programs?
Angry. Appalled. Aggrieved. Agitated. Annoyed. And those are just the A words.
Any ideas for trimming the college's budget?
Any cuts must start at the top with administrative salaries. While I realize that taking a voluntary pay cut would be a purely symbolic gesture, symbols matter. Those of us struggling in the trenches would appreciate knowing that we're not alone.
That is all. Now let's get back to work.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Does this metaphor hold water?
I keep hearing about the need to develop additional "revenue streams," as if there's this huge mass of liquid assets flowing all around us and we need to divert a little bit into our own reservoir, or else we need to lower a bigger bucket into the well or cast a new fly into the trout stream or repair the holes in our nets.
Or maybe we're gonna need a bigger boat.
Or a better metaphor.
Or maybe we're gonna need a bigger boat.
Or a better metaphor.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Short sleeves short-circuit thinking
I was out there on a bench with a book, drinking tea. (No, the bench didn't have a book and the book wasn't drinking tea....)
Here's what I wasn't wearing: boots, long johns, turtleneck sweater, wool socks, coat, hat, gloves, earmuffs. I felt light as a feather, watching all those smiling faces walking past. (No, the feather wasn't watching faces walking....)
The sunshine seems to have addled my brain. Do I care? No, I do not. I'll take an addled brain with short sleeves and sunshine. (Yes, my brain is wearing short sleeves. Why the heck not?)
Friday, March 13, 2015
When glee meets gloom
On September 11, 2001.
What can you do when personal glee intersects with public gloom? I've been wondering that today as I'm enjoying a marvelous time with my adorable granddaughter while my colleagues digest a proposal that, if adopted, will gut some departments very close to my heart. We're out here splashing in puddles and looking at eagles and throwing rocks in the creek while people I care about are wondering what they'll do if they suddenly find themselves up the creek without a paddle.
We're having fun! But everywhere I go, I see signs of distress and gloom. I ought to be commiserating with my colleagues, but instead I'm chasing after a perpetual-laughing machine (at a time when laughter is really unseemly).
Ah well, I'll have time for gloom tomorrow after the little jumping-bean goes back home. Meanwhile, we'll just pull the curtains shut and share our joy in private where we won't disturb the mournful.
Beyond attention
In Sancta, poet Andrew Grace asks us to consider the pileated woodpecker: "Its gun-hammer neck makes to crack its beak into shards, just to suss out one puce beetle hidden in a wrinkle of bark. It is willing to break itself for hunger."
What hunger drives the speaker of this poem into the woods? We don't know. We open the book to find him living in a small cabin with someone whose leaving completes the first half. The second, solitary section finds him coping with cold and silence, with the sound of garbage trucks climbing a hill and the drumming of pileated woodpeckers.
Grace builds brief blocks of prose poems into a book-length work in which the speaker takes to the woods in an attempt to rebuild a broken life. The poems are studded with fresh metaphors:
And the wind pushes another load of used light over the horizon.
A convergence of kayaks makes the lake cross-eyed.
My mouth is seamed as a scar, debarred and redeemed.But even as Grace excels at describing the natural world in new ways, he questions the sufficiency of such description:
Do you ever feel like description is a filibuster against emotion? Today is boredom and the scent of cedar. I used to chide myself for being satisfied. Now I watch the lake's mirror etc. and I sing etc., etc.More than anything, Sancta is a call to move beyond etc. and see:
Look, is all. The cabin. Look. The lake. Flies like quarter-carats of Hell festoon the curtain. Slipped fires take to the sky. Sweet pine strewn with nude opal birds at its base. O if only my attention led to something besides more attention.Sometimes the looking becomes painful as Grace "navigate[s] the radiant aftermath of loss," but the invitation to look remains irresistible. Sancta wonders whether there are "other places as knotted with light and shade" and then takes us into the shade to shed some light on the dark places. What hunger drives him there? The hunger inside all of us.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
In Just--mud
(not quite but almost)
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
rushed vacuum-man
rumbles whoosh and whirr
and dustydried mud comes
rushing up from rugs and
carpets and it's
spring
and my driveway is a mud-pit
(and don't even ask about my
shoes
and rugs
and floors)
in just--
(not quite but almost)
spring
(With apologies to e.e. cummings.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)