tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119217822024-03-13T05:16:56.281-05:00Say Something Wonderful"Writing oils the wrist." --Georgette HeyerE. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger377125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-86555808047639916942016-07-15T12:41:00.001-05:002016-07-15T12:41:33.290-05:00Saving this...Saving this for the next time I teach Alyssa Cole's "Let It Shine":
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">In 1961, 57% of Americans opposed civil rights "sit ins." Which side of history will you be on? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatter?src=hash">#BlackLivesMatter</a> <a href="https://t.co/fCGjUjG0qM">pic.twitter.com/fCGjUjG0qM</a></p>— Eric Ward (@BulldogShadow) <a href="https://twitter.com/BulldogShadow/status/753943917234708480">July 15, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-6443961905970346662015-03-05T12:30:00.000-06:002015-03-05T12:30:05.729-06:00Grading Standards: An Old HandoutStumbled on this in an old syllabus, and thought I'd post it here, where I'll be able to find it easily, in case I want either to use it again or to have my Education students critique it!<br />
<br />
ENG 286: Popular Romance Fiction<br />
Notes on My Grading of Student Papers<br />
<br />
1.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Everyone starts with a B. That is, my working assumption is that your paper is “good,” which in this class is a B. (In some classes you’ve taken, it may have been an A; in others, it may have been a C.) In terms of points, everything you write starts with a “2.”<br />
<br />
2.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It takes something special to raise that grade, either in the quality of your ideas or in the elegance of your prose. An insight that surprises and impresses me, a deft turn of phrase, will count in your favor. Enough of these and your essay will go from a B to a B+, a 2 to a 3, or higher.<br />
<br />
3.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> In this class, an “A” paper is exceptional work. I love to read A papers, I love to give A grades on papers, but I don’t give them lightly. <br />
<br />
4.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If you have trouble writing an A paper, can you still raise your grade? Yes, by speaking up in class and by doing well on the final “first thoughts / afterthoughts / final reflections” project. I make no guarantees, but class participation and a strong final exam will help you do well, and I grade both of them differently than I do your papers.<br />
<br />
5.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What lowers your grade from a B to a B-, a C+, or a C? Sometimes it’s a matter of your arguments and ideas. Underdeveloped ideas, unclear arguments, points not fleshed out or fully considered: all of these will bring down your grade. So will a paper that simply repeats material from class, without showing that you can use those terms or course ideas to generate arguments or insights of your own. Other problems may occur, and I’ll try to point them out to you in my comments on the paper itself. In the shorter response paragraphs, I don’t expect every idea to be fully developed, but I do expect your ideas to be clear and interesting, not simply echoes of my lecture.<br />
<br />
6.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What else lowers your grade? Poor writing. You are all college students, and should be doing college level writing. Sentences and paragraphs that are hard for me to follow, mistakes in grammar and syntax, prose that depends on clichés or uses slang in an inappropriate context, awkward or missing transitions: none of these should appear in your essay, and when they do, they’ll weigh it down. <br />
<br />
7.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The more your writing distracts me from your argument, the lower your final grade will be. It makes me sad to see strong ideas decked out in clumsy prose. Tuck in the shirt, polish the shoes, wipe the nose, check the posture. Impress me. <br />
<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-76530685964255147642014-10-14T10:12:00.000-05:002014-10-14T10:12:05.953-05:00Robert Hayden's "Frederick Douglass": 3 VersionsMy senior capstone seminar this quarter is spending 10 weeks on Robert Hayden's sonnet "Frederick Douglass." Among the pleasures of the course so far has been my students' sleuthing out of two earlier versions of the poem. The final version was published in 1966, but Hayden published an early draft in 1945, and a revision--close to the final, but not identical with it--in 1947. I thought it might be helpful to other teachers to have the three versions posted all together here.<br />
<br />
Here is the familiar final version, as published in 1966 and thereafter, via the <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175757#.VD07yAgymbk.blogger" target="_blank">Poetry Foundation</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful<br />and terrible thing, needful to man as air, <br />usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all, <br />when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, <br />reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more <br />than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians: <br />this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro <br />beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world <br />where none is lonely, none hunted, alien, <br />this man, superb in love and logic, this man <br />shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric, <br />not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,<br />but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives <br />fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.</blockquote>
<div>
The 1947 version was published in the February, 1947 issue of the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>. It looks like this:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TUirxhk3G_4/VDxDXnxys1I/AAAAAAAAARw/vD1wKIr5Ags/s1600/Frederick%2BDouglass%2B(1947%2BVersion).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TUirxhk3G_4/VDxDXnxys1I/AAAAAAAAARw/vD1wKIr5Ags/s1600/Frederick%2BDouglass%2B(1947%2BVersion).png" height="435" width="640" /></a></div>
As you can see, this is almost the same as the final version of the poem, with a few small but resonant differences. In line three, the "it" of the poem is imagined as belonging "at last to our children," rather than "at last to all," as Hayden has it in the final version; this version gives the whole poem as a single sentence broken by a dash, rather than as two separate sentences, the first one ending with "shall be remembered"; finally, this version closes with an invocation of "the needful, beautiful thing" rather than "the beautiful, needful thing." <br />
<br /></div>
The differences are more striking--<i>much </i>more striking--when you compare the 1947 version to the first published version of "Frederick Douglass," from 1945. It's <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=RhH52O53aAIC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=%22Such+men+are+timeless,+and+their+lives+are+levers%22&source=bl&ots=cTwFdm51sX&sig=JKJ0NkV-g-WI7-qFfE5A4t4qf0c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mjw9VJqIM9ShyATD6oGoDQ&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Such%20men%20are%20timeless%2C%20and%20their%20lives%20are%20levers%22&f=false" target="_blank">quoted in full</a> in Robert Chrisman's essay "Robert Hayden: the Transition Years, 1946-1948." Evidently it was originally published as part of "Five Americans: a Sequence from <i>The Black Spear</i>," which appeared in "Lewis B. Martin's short-lived monthly, <i>Headlines and Pictures</i>, in May, 1945" (Chrisman, 133); the other four sonnets in the sequence were about William Lloyd Garrison, Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. As you'll see, this "Frederick Douglass" bears almost no resemblance to the ones which followed:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
III. Frederick Douglass </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Such men are timeless, and their lives are levers<br />
that lift the crushing dark away like boulders.<br />
Death cannot silence them, nor history,<br />
suborned or purchased like the harlot’s crass<br />
endearments, expatriate them. Like negatives<br />
held to the light, their weaknesses reveal<br />
our possible strength. Their power proves us godly,<br />
and by their stripes are we made whole in purpose. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Douglass, O colossus of our wish<br />
and allegory of us all, one thinks<br />
of you as shipwrecked voyagers think of<br />
an island. Breasting waters mined with doubt<br />
and error, we struggle toward your dream of man<br />
unchained, of man permitted to be man.</blockquote>
I'll leave discussion of the poem's evolution to you and your students. You might also want to fold in some of the available audio of the poem: Hayden's reading on the Poetry Foundation website (linked above); the Poetry Out Loud performances on YouTube, etc. It's a fine poem for a 10-week class.E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-71683427341815449602014-09-30T10:06:00.003-05:002014-09-30T10:06:37.093-05:00Course for Next Quarter<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
ENG 466: Modern American Poetry<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Personal and political,
local and global, difficult and accessible, lyrical and experimental, polished and
(ostensibly) improvised, sacred and secular, familiar and estranging: these are some of the axes with which we can
plot the trajectories of modern and postmodern American poetry. This Winter Quarter, we will explore those
trajectories through extensive readings in four contrasting African American
poets: Robert Hayden, Lucille Clifton,
Nathaniel Mackey, and Harryette Mullen. We
will situate their work in a range of literary and cultural contexts, including
Eliotic and popular modernism, the Black Arts Movement, the New American Poetry
(especially the work of Robert Duncan and Charles Olson), Language poetry, and the
French group Oulipo. We will read selections
from the authors’ prose (essays, memoirs, fiction, criticism) as well as their verse,
and when possible we will explore their on-line audio and video presences through
PennSound, the Poetry Foundation, and other archives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
(We'll see how it goes. Hayden and Clifton I've taught many times before; Mullen not in a decade, maybe; Mackey, never before. All advice appreciated!)</div>
E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-57237240288806786412014-09-29T11:49:00.001-05:002014-09-29T11:49:48.425-05:00More Handouts from Class<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
I'm not sure if this will be useful to anyone, but just in case--here's a handout I distributed today in my Reading Poetry class. More to come, as they show up in the class.</div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>4-Beat
(Tetrameter) Worksheet</b><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: -1.0in -.5in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in; text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In English poetry, tetrameter starts as the prestige meter
of the ruling class. An unrhymed, highly
alliterative tetrameter is the meter of <i>Beowolf</i>, <i>Caedmon's Hymn</i>, <i>The Seafarer</i>. The meter thus
carries with it some <u>historical associations</u> of archaic or primitive
poetry, and of heroic and manly struggle.
Later poets who want to trigger those associations in the minds of their
readers will often use the four-beat line, especially in that unrhymed way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After Norman Conquest, the language of the Court & upper
classes is French, not Old English. The tetrameter line
survives and still flourishes, mostly with
rhyme added in, as the
dominant form of popular or oral poetry, as
in magic spells or charms or incantations (“Double, double, boil and bubble, /
Fire burn and cauldron bubble…”), nursery rhymes, hymns, ballads, folk songs, pop-songs,
old-school rap, etc., as well as in later literary verse that wants to conjure
up these associations, for straightforward or
ironic reasons.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In both its Old English and popular varieties, tetrameter
is a "<u>strong-stress</u>" meter. That means, the poet generally counts the number of stresses per line, not the total number of syllables; it’s often hard
to talk about metrical “feet” when we’re reading tetrameter verse. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Frequently it falls into the <u>4 x 4</u> pattern, with four line stanzas marked by end-rhymes. Another common variant is the <u>4-3-4-3 stanza</u> with a "<u>virtual
beat</u>" (that is, a little pause) at the end of the shorter lines.
This version was once so common that it earned the name “<u>common meter.</u> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Tetrameter</u> is a
powerful meter, which tends to overpower or shape
the language you use, turning it into a hypnotic
chant or sing-song rhythm, even if this means that you’re not putting an accent
onto a word that carries meaning. It is
much more powerful in this way than <u>pentameter</u> (five-meter), which can
sound more conversational and less chant-like.
Pentameter becomes the prestige meter for English poetry during the Renaissance. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><u>Scan as Four-Beat (Tetrameter) Lines, marking four
heavily accented (“stressed”) syllables in each line.<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Dr. Seuss</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So we sat in the house all that cold, cold, wet day.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I sat there with Sally.
We sat there, we two,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I said, “How I wish we had something to do!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Too wet to go out and too cold to play ball,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So we sat in the house.
We did nothing at all.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so all we could do was to sit, sit, sit, sit.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And we did not like it.
Not one little bit.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
****<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
"That
Sam-I-Am! That Sam-I-Am! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I do not
like that Sam-I-Am!” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
"Do
you like green eggs and ham?"<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
"I
do not like them, Sam-I-Am."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
"Would
you like them here or there?"<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
"Would
you like them in a house? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Would
you like them with a mouse?" <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
"Would
you like them in a box? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Would
you like them with a fox?"<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Star light, star bright<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First star I see tonight<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wish I may, I wish I might<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Have the wish I wish tonight<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
***<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Couldn’t put Humpty together again <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Hymn / Ballad / Song Stanzas (4/3/4/3 and other common variations)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just sit right back, and you’ll hear a tale,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The tale of a fateful trip (X)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That started from this tropic port<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aboard this tiny ship. (X)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
****<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Amazing grace! How
sweet the sound<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That saved a wretch like me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I once was lost, but now I’m found<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Was blind, but now I see.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>From</b> <b>LOTR:</b> <b><i>Return of the King</i><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Riders of Rohan!
Oaths you have taken--<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
***<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arise, Arise, Riders of Theoden!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A sword day, a red day, ere the sun rises!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ride to ruin and the world’s ending—<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>From <i>Beowulf</i><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Cunningly creeping, a spectral stalker<br />
slunk through the night. The spearmen were sleeping<br />
who ought to have held the high-horned house,<br />
all except one, for the Lord's will<br />
now became known: no more would the murderer<br />
drag under darkness whomever he wished.<br />
Wrath was wakeful, watching in hatred;<br />
hot-hearted Beowulf was bent upon battle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here is a recent poem by Annie Finch, a contemporary
formalist poet. What features of this
poem can you connect with features of Old English poetics, both in terms of
sound and in terms of naming and renaming? What
features are more typical of later medieval poetry, either in terms of sound or
of other kinds of language use? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Annie Finch, “A
Blessing on the Poets”<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patient earth-digger, impatient fire-maker,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hungry word-taker and roving sound-lover,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sharer and saver, muser and acher,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You who are open to hide or uncover,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Time-keeper and hater, wake-sleeper, sleep-waker;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
May language's language, the silence that lies<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Under each word, move you over and over,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Turning you, wondering, back to surprise.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-80444816587980858732014-09-16T15:42:00.003-05:002014-09-16T15:42:57.804-05:00Dear Students...<span lang="EN">Dear Students,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN">By class-time on Wednesday I’d like you to
write three paragraphs: one paragraph each about three poems that you
choose from the “sheaf of short poems” handed out on the first day of
class. If you weren’t in class, you can find them at the end of the
syllabus, which I’ve uploaded to our D2L site. The poems you choose
should be at least three lines long; I suggest that you stick with poems of
3-12 lines for this first assignment. Each paragraph should talk
about how you can make this particular poem interesting by using one or more of
the tools laid out in class and summarized later in this email. You don’t
need to give an exhaustive reading of the poem! One or two tools per poem
is fine, and three to five sentences is plenty for each paragraph. Upload your
paragraphs--as a single document, preferably--to the appropriate dropbox folder
on D2L. </span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN">Your goals for this assignment
are to practice some habits of attention, and to give me a taste of your
writing. I’d love to see you try using each of the four approaches
spelled out below at least once; as you’ll discover, they overlap in what they
discover, although they’re slightly different in primary focus and emphasis.
<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN">In class we picked some two-line
poems and considered how to make them interesting (or, if you prefer, how to
find something interesting about them) using analytical tools I’d talked about
and put on the board. As a quick refresher, in case you didn’t write
those down, here’s more or less what I put there:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN">There were three broad categories
of inquiry—although in practice they will overlap somewhat: the poem as <b>contraption
</b>(a “machine made out of words”); the poem as a <b>character</b> (a script
for you to say); and the poem as responding to or inhabiting in some particular
<b>context</b> (a form, a genre, a particular historical moment, a particular
publishing venue, like the wall of a men’s room stall, etc.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN">There were also four specific
things that sophisticated-sounding readers of poetry often say they spot a poem doing:</span><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><span lang="EN">Playing with language (wordplay, puns, musicality, formal patterns, attention
to etymology [the roots of words in Latin or Greek or Anglo-Saxon, etc.] in
order to <i>make a thing </i>rather than simply express an idea.</span></li>
<li>Acting out / What it’s about: that is, having the language of the poem
somehow mimetically “act out” something that the poem talks about: for
example, through a change in form or rhythm or pacing, or through a change in
the visual layout of the text (including, as we saw in Reznikoff, from the
“stiff lines” of letters l and i to the “blurred” lines of b and d), or in any
other way.</li>
<li>Dividing into sections, with the <i>emotional / idea drama </i>of the poem
(that is, the changes in mood or idea) playing out as <i>linguistic drama</i>
(that is, changes in language or style). This is different from move #2
in that the change doesn’t have to be acting out something that the poem is
about; it’s more a matter of a change at one level of the poem, the mood or
idea, triggering or showing up as a change at another level of the poem, that
of style.* </li>
<li>Finally, I talked about how poems can be made interesting by dividing them into sections and spotting <i>repetition and variation</i> between the sections, as well as <i>contrast and change</i> between the sections. Repetition and variation helps hold poems together, giving them the effect “complete centripetal coherence.” Another way to think about this is that there are many systems at work in any given poem, with many threads of connection, potentially, between any one part of the poem or any one word in the poem and many others. (There can be sound threads, meaning threads, word-root threads, level-of-diction threads, tone threads, etc.—lots of them, all at once!) Tug on any one part of a poem, and another part will probably twitch. Point out those connections, and you’ve made the poem more interesting, and given yourself some tools to talk about the poem as a contraption, as a character, and even perhaps as a response to some context, too!</li>
</ol>
<br />
<span lang="EN">*PLEASE NOTE: I didn’t
mention this in class, but as you’ll see in future class discussions, you can
often use these “linguistic drama” changes as evidence of some kind of change
in the mood or idea or psychological state of the character saying the
poem. Repeated sounds, for example, might be used as evidence that the
character is hearkening back to or refusing to let go of some idea that was
expressed the first time those sounds came into the poem. These kinds of
claims are very dependent on the specific contexts of individual poems, so we’ll
spend some time learning how to make plausible ones and to avoid ones that
sound forced or unlikely.</span> E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-64583222943221965822014-09-14T08:56:00.003-05:002014-09-14T08:56:23.792-05:00Noted Rather CrosslyI settled in to read Khaled Mattawa's <i>Mahmoud Darwish: the Poet's Art and His Nation </i>the other day, but found myself frowning at two small errors in wording early on. <br />
<br />
The IDF is the Israel Defense Forces, not the "Israeli Defense Forces" (as they're named on p. 1); likewise the PLO is the Palestine Liberation Organization, not the "Palestinian" one, as the organization is repeatedly called, including in the index.<br />
<br />
I'm a little puzzled by these errors. Did they creep in unnoticed? Are they deliberate? (If so, a note would be nice.) They're not big, substantive mistakes, like the ones that Mark sometimes notices in footnotes, but they do grate on me. A pity. More on the book anon.E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-48641333900234645432014-09-12T11:43:00.000-05:002014-09-12T11:43:57.623-05:00Short Poems (Arranged by Length)I've wanted for several years to try arranging the poems in my Reading Poetry course not by period, genre, author, or form, but simply by length. Haven't gone that far yet, but I am starting this term with a week or two on poems arranged this way, starting with two-line poems and working our way up to a 13-liner, just short of a sonnet.<br />
<br />
(I could have started with one-line poems, but I don't know many, and the few I do were...distracting. They needed too much contextual explanation to be helpful, and they didn't lend themselves to the close-reading techniques I was trying to foster. Maybe next time.)<br />
<br />
Here's the little sheaf of poems I handed out on the first day of class. More next time on what I've asked my students to do with them.<br />
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A Sheaf of Short
Poems<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Two Line Poems <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b>Anonymous Graffiti from a Bard College Men’s
Room, when I was Eight Years Old<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Don't
switch Dicks in the middle of a screw,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Vote for
Nixon in '72.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Max and
Emmie’s Rhyme (from <i>Dragon Tales</i>) <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I wish, I wish, with all my heart<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To fly with dragons in a land apart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Charles
Reznikoff, “April”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">The stiff lines of the twigs <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Blurred by buds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Robert
Frost, “The Span of Life”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">The old dog barks backward without getting up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I can remember when he was a pup.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Harryette
Mullen, from <i>Trimmings<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Night moon star sun down gown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Night moan stir sin dawn gown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">A.R.
Ammons, "Their Sex Life" <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">One failure on<br />
Top of another<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">A. R. Ammons, “Weathering”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">A day without rain is like<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">a day without sunshine<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Ronald Johnson
“Beam 10” of <i>ARK</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">daimon</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> diamond
Monad I<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Adam Kadmon in the sky<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Three Line Poems <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Selected
Haiku by Issa (Robert Hass, Trans.)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Don’t worry, spiders,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I keep house<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> casually.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> New Year’s Day—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">everything is in blossom!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> I feel about
average.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> The snow is
melting<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">and the village is flooded<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> with children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Emily Dickinson (untitled poem)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the name of the Bee -</span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">And of the Butterfly -</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">And of the Breeze - Amen!</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Charles
Reznikoff (untitled poem)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">How shall we mourn you who are killed and wasted,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">sure that you would not die with your work unended,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">as if the iron scythe in the grass stops for a flower?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Ezra
Pound, “</span></b><strong><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Alba”</span></strong><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
As cool
as the pale wet leaves<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
of
lily-of-the-valley<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
She lay
beside me in the dawn.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">D.H.
Lawrence, “The White Horse”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">and the horse looks at him in silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">They are so silent, they are in another world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">William
Bronk, “Eternity”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Always isn’t at any particular time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">so everness is also a neverness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">At times, we are more comfortable with that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Susan
Howe, from <i>Hinge Picture</i></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">a king<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">delight<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">s in War<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Four Line Poems <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Robert
Herrick, “Upon Prue, His Maid”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In this little urn is laid<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Prudence Baldwin, once my maid,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From whose happy spark here let<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Spring the purple violet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">William
Blake, “Eternity”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He who binds to himself a joy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Does the winged life destroy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But he who kisses the joy as it flies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lives in eternity’s sun rise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Coventry Patmore,
"Constancy Rewarded" <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
vow'd unvarying faith, and she,<br />
To whom in full I pay that vow,<br />
Rewards me with variety<br />
Which men who change can never know.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">“Small
Song,” by A. R. Ammons<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">The reeds give<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">way to the<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">wind and give<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">the wind away<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Howard
Nemerov, “Happy Hour”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here, on the way from source to sink,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Between the brewery and the piss, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The pale already golden drink,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The dream, the kindness, the company, and the kiss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Robert
Creeley, “A Step”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Things<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> come and
go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> let them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ron Padgett, “Poetic License”</span></b><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<br />
</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This license certifies</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">That Ron Padgett may tell whatever lies</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">His heart desires</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Until it expires<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">William
Corbett, “July 28” from <i>Columbus Square
Notebook</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">If I abandon poetry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">If poetry abandons me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I will be the man who owes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">$531 on his gas bill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mary-Jo Salter, “Lullaby for a
Daughter”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Someday, when the sands of time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">invert, may you find perfect rest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">as a newborn nurses from<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the hourglass of your breast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Longer Short Poems (Five Lines and Over)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Harvey
Shapiro, “Desk”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">After my death, my desk,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">which is now so cluttered,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">will be bare wood, simple and shining,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">as I wanted it to be in my life,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">as I wanted my life to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">William
Butler Yeats, “A Deep-sworn Vow” <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Others because you did not keep <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Yet always when I look death in the face, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">When I clamber to the heights of sleep, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Or when I grow excited with wine, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Suddenly I meet your face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Susan
Howe, from <i>Pythagorean Silence<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.85pt; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">we that were wood<br />
</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">when that a wide wood was<br />
<br />
In a physical Universe playing with<br />
<br />
<br />
</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">xxxxxxxx</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">words<br />
<br />
<br />
Bark be my limbs my hair be leaf<br />
<br />
Bride be my bow my lyre my quiver<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Robert Graves, “She
Tells Her Love
While Half Asleep”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She tells her love while half asleep, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> In the
dark hours, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> With half-words
whispered low: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As Earth stirs in her winter sleep <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> And puts
out grass and flowers <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Despite the snow, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Despite the
falling snow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">untitled
poem by “Archilochos” (“First Sergeant”), Trans. Guy Davenport<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some Saian mountaineer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Struts today with
my shield.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I threw it down by
a bush and
ran<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When the fighting
got hot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Life seemed somehow
more precious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was a
beautiful shield.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I know where
I can buy
another<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Exactly like it,
just as round.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Frank
O’Hara, “Today” </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">You really are beautiful! Pearls,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! all<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">the stuff they've always talked about<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">still makes a poem a surprise!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">These things are with us every day<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">even on beachheads and biers. They<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">do have meaning. They're strong as rocks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">William Matthews, “A Major Work”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Poems are hard to read<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pictures are hard to see<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Music is hard to hear<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And people are hard to love<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But whether from brute need<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Or divine energy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At last mind eye and ear<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the great sloth heart will move.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lorine Niedecker,
“Poet's Work”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Grandfather<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> advised me:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Learn a
trade<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">I learned<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> to sit at desk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and condense<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">No layoff<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> from this<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> condensery<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="background: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Harvey Shapiro, “The
Uses of Poetry” </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">This was a day when I did nothing,</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">aside from reading the newspaper,</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">taking both breakfast and lunch by myself</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">in the kitchen, dozing after lunch</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">until the middle of the afternoon. Then</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">I read one poem by Zbigniew Herbert</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">in which he thanked God for the many beautiful</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">things in this world, in a voice so absurdly</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">truthful, the entire wrecked day was redeemed.</span></span><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">James
Merrill, “b o d y”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
Look closely at
the letters. Can you see,<br />
entering (stage right), then floating full,<br />
then heading off - so soon
-<br />
how like a little kohl-rimmed moon<br />
<i>o</i> plots her course from <i>b</i> to <i>d<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br />
--as <i>y</i>, unanswered, knocks at the stage door?<br />
Looked at too long, words fail, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
phase out. Ask,
now that <i>body</i> shines <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
no longer, by
what light you learn these lines <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
and what the <i>b</i>
and <i>d</i> stood for.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Harvey
Shapiro, “God Poem” <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Nobody does silence as well as God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">He fills whole cathedrals with it,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">store-front churches and synagogues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">We once believed in the music of the spheres<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">but now we hear silence--static and silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">It can be overwhelming--the way God<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">was said to be overwhelming in the old books:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">when he talked to Job, for example,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">or when he instructed Moses on<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">what plagues to deal out<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">or when he described to Noah just<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">what he was going to do, and then did it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Better to be nourished by the silence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-89822538735302250972014-09-11T11:37:00.004-05:002014-09-11T11:37:57.562-05:00In-Between DaysSummer is over, and in many parts of my life, I'm in a strange, transitional period. My son, who was in 3rd or 4th grade when I started this blog, leaves next week for college. My beloved rabbi, whom I've known for a dozen years, has <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.614341" target="_blank">resigned his post</a>, and since he was the main reason I'd stayed a member at the synagogue, I'm out the door as well, once his final months are done. At work, a half-dozen colleagues have left: five taking early retirement, thanks to a generous buy-out offer, and one leaving for greener pastures in Florida. (Do they have pastures there?) This leaves me as a senior member of the English faculty, a role I'm not at all used to--and it comes as I've finally sent off the manuscript of my co-edited collection on Romance Fiction and American Culture, a book five years in the making, and as I've been steered back to teaching more poetry by the departmental Powers that Be. <br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One way I've coped with all of this change has been to go back and re-read some of the early months of this blog. Very few of my first few years of posts were about <i>me</i>, at least personally. I was blogging about poetry, and the teaching of poetry, mostly, with a lot of material that I'd forgotten. I'll use some of it in my courses this fall, and perhaps post more such material here as well, at least as a repository for my future self. I feel oddly <i>done</i> with Facebook and Twitter, as the summer ends. "With what I most enjoyed, contented least," as the sonnet says. Maybe it's time to go back to the older, slower social media? We'll see!<br />
<br />
A strange time. In-between days. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KC56lWw1cwc" width="420"></iframe>E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-4573843272986065612014-04-06T11:39:00.000-05:002014-04-06T11:39:05.644-05:00LifehacksThe quarter didn't work out quite as planned. Something about the morning schedule (I've rarely taught morning classes), the course for teachers that was outside my area of expertise (grammar? rhetoric? not my fields), the independent study that expanded into 1.5-3 hours a week of meeting and conversing: all of those ate into my blogging life, and into my professional life more generally. I felt overwhelmed all winter, and got much less done--aside from those required teaching jobs--than I'd hoped or planned. <br />
<br />
Now that spring has sprung, I'm trying out a few "hacks," as they say, in my everyday schedule, not so much in order to free up time to work as to carve out room to think, and read, and play.<br />
<br />
You see, for whatever reason, I found myself spending more and more time this winter caught up in digital media: reading a handful of political blogs, reading (though not really posting on) Twitter, window shopping at guitar sites, etc. That was where my downtime went, such as it was--and it's a self-reinforcing habit, such that other modes of relaxation grew less and less natural and immediate. <br />
<br />
My goal now is to trim back that digital life, and to fill my time (and my head) with more enjoyable material. I've deleted the personal Twitter account, @EricSelinger, although I still have the professional one, @JPRStudies. And I've been editing my Facebook feed to take out the posts that tend to preoccupy me without really adding value or pleasure to my day. I've also swapped my iPod alarm clock, which woke me to music, for an old fashioned travel alarm--not because I disliked the music (it was quite lovely), but because looking at the screen right before bed to turn on or reset the alarm made it all-too tempting to check email, or Twitter, or Facebook, or YouTube, or any of the other sites right before turning in.<br />
<br />
I'm not worrying about bit professional or personal goals at this point--rather, step by tiny step, I want to bring my everyday life a bit closer to the happiest periods I had a few years ago, when I read more books and played more music and didn't worry quite as much about things I was reading on line. I was also blogging more then, rather than posting on the other social networking sites. Not sure whether we're talking about a causal relationship, or just a correlation, but it can't hurt to try doing a bit more of that as well.<br />
<br />
I've also started doing handstands, but that's a topic for another post. :)<br />
<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-10847750233753262382014-01-11T08:05:00.000-06:002014-01-11T08:05:35.222-06:00Very [Adj.] Start to YearLike most of my plans for the new year--hopes, more than plans; wishes, more than resolutions--my plan to start posting here again have been on hold. An assortment of exigencies, from work to bad weather, have gotten in the way. We're not even two weeks into 2014, though, and I refuse to be discouraged, or at least <i>more </i>discouraged, which is what not writing will do to me. So here I am, by George, however briefly, taking a minute out of the day to think about what needs to be done.<br />
<br />
I got a fair amount done during my research leave. I wrote three conference papers, each different from the last, along with an 11000-word essay on Susan Elizabeth Phillips's <i>Natural Born Charmer </i>and the first few pages of a new essay on some Jewish American poets. I did a lot of managerial and administrative work on IASPR and the the Romance area of PCA; I worked a lot on JPRS (next issue coming soon!); with help from colleagues, I landed two book contracts, and brought one of those books, a co-edited collection, nearly to completion. I played a lot of guitar, and a little mandola. <br />
<br />
The most important thing I did, though, was figure out what was going <i>wrong</i>, a few months into the leave. Week after week went by, in the beginning, without any progress on anything substantive; the days blurred into one another, awash in email; I was sleeping badly; I was <i>down</i>, as I hadn't been in a while. Blogging then seemed to exacerbate the situation, which is why I stopped. <br />
<br />
What helped then, and needs to help now, was some good time management decisions. I moved everything connected to email to my afternoons, and set the morning aside for research and writing. After lunch I practiced an instrument, if only for 10 or 15 minutes; after dinner, I did no writing or correspondence; at bedtime, I avoided reading on screens. Simple moves, each of them, but they changed everything.<br />
<br />
My teaching schedule this term won't let me keep that schedule, alas. I have to be up by 6 at the latest, and on the road early; my first class is at 9:40, and my second follows pretty closely on its heels. That's two mornings a week accounted for--and I have plenty of prep that I need to do for each class, which also takes up time. I'm getting more and more email, now from students, as well as colleagues, so there's a backlog I'll need to get sorted; I've fallen days or weeks behind on my writing and editing projects; I haven't picked up an instrument in days. For the past couple of nights I've found myself picking up the iPod right at bedtime to check in on Facebook or scroll plaintively through my inbox, which doesn't help the sleep to follow.<br />
<br />
The first task , then, is to figure out a sustainable schedule for the new quarter: not the same one, but something similar. Will think about that today.<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-22179796696182887752013-06-24T12:11:00.001-05:002013-06-24T12:12:25.074-05:00Just What I Tweeted (Professionally, Natch)As the summer began, I went off Twitter and Facebook, suspending my accounts. I've gone back on both, although with Twitter, it's really for professional reasons: a sense that we needed to have a stronger IASPR / JPRS presence there.<br />
<br />
I'm currently posting there from a new Editorial account, with the handle @JPRStudies, and I've signed in to post from @IASPR from time to time as well.<br />
<br />
All this on-again, off-again social networking is rather comical, I know. In fact, I wrote a song about it, delivered by my Alte Rocker compatriot "Flash" (the photographer David Sutton) at last spring's PurimSpiel:<br />
<br />
<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eK4MwAWxWpA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />
<br />
David's having a little joke by reading the lyrics off of his phone; here they are, for your amusement, too:<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Just What I Tweeted - Lyrics © 2013 by Eric Selinger</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I make the promise every year--</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">It's wasting all my time.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I've got to quit the cybersphere,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">And get some peace of mind.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">But there's a farm to populate</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">And something new from George Takei</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">And have you seen this video</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Of puppies making wine?</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Every time we're on a date,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">We're posting while we dine.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I know the food was awfully good,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">You told me so, on-line.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">You keep a browser in your hand,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Another one on your nightstand,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">In case you feel like waking up </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">To "like" me in my sleep...</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">This time I'm gonna defeat it!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">You know, I'm feeling so free,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Since my account's been deleted,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">But I've got nothing to read...</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">[solo]</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">People tell me logging on</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Is wasting all their time, time.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I'm bragging I gave it up,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I feel so unconfined, yeah.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">But won't you tell me what's the news?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">And could you check +972?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I'm pining for my Muzzlewatch,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Or was it Mondoweiss?</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">This time I nearly suceeded!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I lasted almost a week.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">But there's a fix and I need it!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I've got a friend list to weed...</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I guess I've just been defeated!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I couldn't stand to secede.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">In fact, I'm gonna go tweet it!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I've got a Tumblr to feed—yeah, yeah...</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">So feed me.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I've just been re-tweeted!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I've just been re-tweeted!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I've just been re-tweeted!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Yeah, yeah, yeah...</span>E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-37358657851018614252013-06-22T07:36:00.000-05:002013-06-22T07:36:07.397-05:00SherlockDoes every spouse / domestic partner become a bit of a detective? I wake up in the morning, come upstairs, and figure out what's been up the night before: a son up late, a daughter slipping on her headphones to watch something on one of her devices. <br />
<br />
Last night, if I'm not deceived, at about 4 am, my wife got up with postnasal drip and a bad a sore throat, gargled salt water, fumbled around in the medicine cabinet for a Benadryl, then went back to bed, very unhappy with her lot.<br />
<br />
That's the working hypothesis, anyway. When she gets up, we'll see if I'm right. E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-56232105694804740772013-06-20T08:16:00.000-05:002013-06-20T08:16:32.969-05:00Assorted UpdatesGood moods holding, more or less. Everything well within acceptable parameters--I feel like I'm back on an even keel, moving forward. Not sure what to credit for this, but it's quite a relief.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
One sign of things doing better: I've done a little scholarly reading. Started with a book on American Jewish culture (background for a poetry piece I mean to do in the fall), and a bit of Robert Archambeau's <i>The Poet Resigns</i>, a collection of essays about poetry and criticism in contemporary America. Oh, and Jennifer Kloester's biography of Georgette Heyer, for a talk I give (checks his watch) <i>today</i>!<br />
<br />
More on that anon.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
On the instrument front, for a Father's Day present I decided to put a new tailpiece on the mandola and start playing it with the klezmer band. The bandleader wants me to keep doing chordal accompaniment, rather than melody, but down the line perhaps I can do some duets with our mandolinist, if I get good enough.<br />
<br />
I'd hoped to put in a pickup, to make playing with the band less cumbersome, but the repair shop told me that an internal one wouldn't work; something with the bracing, evidently. I can buy an externally-mounted pickup down the line, if I decide that's needed, but for now I'm just going to play into a microphone and see how that goes. <br />
<br />
In any case, the instrument really sings, now. More sustain, richer tone, a real pleasure to hear. And the whole process of getting the tailpiece turned out to be a pleasure: the visit to the little storefront folk instrument shop, the email exchange I had with the luthier who made the mandola, Walt Kuhlman, the simple prettiness of the shiny new gold (plated) addition to the instrument.<br />
<br />
Now I just need to start practicing chords. Dm, Am, E7, on the upbeat, to start. <br />
<br />
"Dm: it's not a key, it's a lifestyle." --Naftuli Brandwein (I think)<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Another sign of the upturn in my mood: I've started reading the Stupid Motivational Tricks blog again. Fewer motivational tricks in the recent posts, but I'm working my way back through them, to find useful nuggets.<br />
<br />
More on those anon as well. Now, off to the conference!<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-44040781345408742402013-06-07T22:24:00.001-05:002013-06-07T22:24:18.498-05:00On Leave! (First in a series, no doubt)Technically, my research leave from DePaul doesn't start until fall term, but in practice, it started yesterday. I won't be in the classroom again until January 6, 2014. A quick check online tells me that this makes 214 days without teaching, and I hope to make the most of them--although what that "most" will mean remains to be seen.<br />
<br />
Yesterday I mostly just cleaned house, and not in a figurative way. My father-in-law had been visiting for a week, so there was laundry and shopping to be done, and plenty of trash and recycling to be taken out to the alley. It's altogether too satisfying to do such work some days, since it takes the place of reading and writing and editing and grading, but I'd rather do it at a time when I enjoy it than put it off and grumble about it later, so that's what I did. <br />
<br />
By 5 pm, when I'd done many a load of laundry, run a couple of shopping trips, and taken an assortment of children (my own and friends) to various places, I'd started to regret spending the whole day doing nothing but chores and errands, but in retrospect, that may have just been hunger creeping up on me. An hour's exercise class and a good dinner set me right, and I slept unusually well. A day well spent, I think.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I'm typing this at 8:30 or so in the morning, walking on the treadmill, staying away from email. I took a gander at my "to do" list, and it was pretty overwhelming, but I'm going to keep the goals for the day somewhat narrowly focused, so that I leave time for some reading. My biggest regret during the school year this year--and, indeed, for the last few years--has been that I haven't spent nearly enough time taking new information and ideas <i>in</i>, and I'd like to make that a priority for this time away from the classroom.<br />
<br />
So: 10 papers to grade, and one of the overdue JPRS tasks, and then maybe I'll get to sit and read a while. I don't know that I'll be able to do those all at once, and my dropbox keeps making that "popping" sound as new JPRS info is added--peer reviews are coming in!--but we'll see. Small achievable goals, that's the plan.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
(11:00): finished the 10 papers. Taking a break, then it's time for a JPRS task. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Well, the rest of the day didn't go as expected. Hadn't quite finished the JPRS task when my wife wanted to take a break for lunch. By the time that was done, it was time for me to hit the road to DePaul for the end-of-term party; by the time I got home, the work-day was done. Shopped, cooked, watched an episode of <i>The Hour </i>with my family, and that was that. Hm. If I'm going to do any reading, I'd better do it now (after 10 pm).<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Oh, no! Complication in the instrument world. I planned to put new strings on the mandola, then take it in for a trade-in or consignment sale. As I put the first new one on, I saw that the little brass brad it hooks onto, down on the tailpiece, was bending up and ready to snap, just as another one had done a while ago, and a second brad was already alarmingly bent, even before I'd gone to work. This instrument needs a new tailpiece to be playable, or even presentable. The question is, do I need to pay to put one on before I can do anything with it? Or can I sell / trade it in as is? <br />
<br />
That's going to take an in-person visit to the music store, and I don't think I'll have the chance to do that until a week from now. Maddening to wait, but so it goes. In the meantime, I should note that I'm getting enormous pleasure from my main electric guitar these days, which I paid to set up with smooth-wound strings before I started the jazz lessons. A pleasure to both fingers and ears. That was money well spent. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-71573184007098229792013-06-05T12:18:00.000-05:002013-06-05T12:18:31.464-05:00Devices and Desires (and Daffodils)I wrote this on Monday:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
More good days, mood-wise. Per Laura's taxonomy, for most of the past week I've felt quite like a daffodil, with plenty of family celebrations and a visit from my father-in-law to keep me busy and happy, even jocund, now and then. This means, of course, that I'm falling father and farther behind on reading, writing, editing, and so on, even as my brain begins to buzz with new ideas (a consequence of the upbeat mood), but all of this business should wind down in another couple of weeks, and I'll get caught up eventually. If falling behind is the price of this good feeling, that's a price I'm happy to pay.</blockquote>
Tuesday, as luck would have it, was pretty weedy: R slept only about 3 hours, and my own sleep was interrupted by horrific snoring (you know it's bad when you wake yourself up!) and by her getting up at some ungodly hour of the morning. Stressful, unhappy morning, but by the late afternoon things were looking up, and the evening was actually quite pleasant. <br />
<br />
To continue the horticultural metaphor, I'd say that my moods are quite dependent on environmental conditions: sun, rain, good soil, etc. The striking thing about yesterday, though, was the way that having a few good thoughts in mind--how well the past few days had gone; those funny flower terms--kept me from getting entirely caught up in my own sad mood. I was <i>watching</i> it as much as <i>feeling </i>it, if you know what I mean. So when the sun came out (so to speak), I was ready to feel it.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I've always loved the P. D. James title <i>Devices and Desires</i>--which is also the title of a <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Devices_and_Desires.html?id=Im8RdEyDX8cC" target="_blank">history of contraceptives</a> in the US, evidently. It's been coming to mind for the past few months as I've thought about a series of purchases I have and haven't made. First there was the month of agonizing over which tablet computer to buy. I ended up picking up a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, rather than an iPad, because the iPad I wanted (a mini with a retina display) didn't exist yet, and although I've been reasonably happy with the Note, I realize in retrospect that I've enjoyed it just a smidge less than I might have enjoyed the Apple product, because I can't chat with my colleagues about apps and so on. (They're all Apple users.) <br />
<br />
Evidently there's a potential <i>social pleasure </i>that I didn't take into account as I thought about the purchase, which I need to think about next time.<br />
<br />
In any case, there were weeks of fretting about and then regretting the purchase, during which time I was really preoccupied with All Things Tablet--after which that obsession seemed to fade, to the point where I can't imagine running out and buying the retina-display mini when it comes out, because I'm not sure I need it anymore. My default mode with electronic devices seems to be a fairly low level of desire: I don't really enjoy looking at them in stores or imagining having them, and I find the whole process of buying them quite stressful.<br />
<br />
When it comes to instruments, of course, my default mode is much greedier! My plan for the summer, at least for now, is to trade in four or five of the ones I'm no longer playing (one or two mandolins, the mandola, a guitar and an amp), and then, rather than try to get cash in return, to get one or two things that my son and I can enjoy together during his last year at home. <br />
<br />
The things I have in mind are relatively inexpensive: a small tube amp, which my son has asked for, and which will sound better and warmer than either of the ones I currently have (he can take it to college when he goes); and a Telecaster, which will replace my Godin solid-body electric, which I never play nowadays. Nathan's said many times that he'd love to play one, and I think it would come in handy for the Alte Rockers as well. (It was also the kind of guitar I had first, when I was a teen.) <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YnzTDPxjjA8/TSi4qWmoSjI/AAAAAAAAAv4/PBtQPZu_OsQ/s320/slg110n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YnzTDPxjjA8/TSi4qWmoSjI/AAAAAAAAAv4/PBtQPZu_OsQ/s200/slg110n.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
The other instrument I'm thinking of now is a Yamaha "Silent Guitar," which would let me play a nylon-string / classical style instrument through an amp, and would be more resilient in the face of Chicago weather (and AC / heat indoors) than an actual classical guitar. It would be useful both for the klezmer band and for the jazz lessons, especially when I start to learn bossa nova, and I think it looks fun, too.<br />
<br />
That said, given all that I want to do this summer, the simplest thing is to hang on to the instruments I have and do nothing with them for a while. As I've said before, when I turn my attention to playing a new piece, my itch to buy another instrument falls away quite rapidly, and I have a few new pieces (a Jobim number, some old standards, a klezmer song my daughter sings, etc.) that I'm practicing for my current round lessons. <br />
<br />
I'll keep you posted!E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-85365183320380613732013-05-28T21:09:00.001-05:002013-05-28T21:09:06.147-05:00Good Days (Memo from the Fingers Crossed Dept.)There's a joke about the seasons here in Chicago: "What do you call two good days in a row in Chicago?" "Spring." I've been thinking about that joke all weekend, because I've had two, and now three good days in a row, which feels like some kind of new local record. Blues dissipated Saturday, late in the morning, and haven't come back since. Well, maybe a touch right now, but I can feel it as hunger, rather than a mood thing--mind's not plunged into a "negative thought bog," as I've heard it called, and that's a great improvement.<br />
<br />
What accounts for the change? I'm not sure, really, but part of it may be that Saturday morning I went to a truly lovely and fun bat mitzvah celebration: one that gathered some friends from earlier parts of my life, and one that did a wonderful job of assuaging a lot of the unhappy feelings I've had about my synagogue and my relationship with all things Jewish, which used to be a big part of my personal and professional life. If I were a religious man I'd credit divine intervention; in practical, secular terms I think what happened is that the round of unhappy thoughts about Jewish stuff that is a part of my brooding, blue mood got very effectively interrupted, displaced by older and far happier ideas and associations. After which I came home and cleaned house, smiling at the symbolism. <br />
<br />
The other change that may be helping, although I'm not sure what the causal loop would be, is that I've gone off Facebook and Twitter, at least for the summer. Said my farewells last Friday, and then deactivated the accounts; perhaps that had something to do with the good feeling I had on Saturday and since? Who knows.<br />
<br />
In either case, though, yay! :) It's nice to feel happy again.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
After that post, I was away from the computer all day--called away unexpected in order to go buy a new car. My 1997 Toyota Corolla had long since given up the ghost, and was a rusty, battered remnant of its former self. It's now been replaced by a new Honda Fit, also red, which I'll get to drive to work tomorrow in all its glory. <br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-22010791002100282292013-05-22T21:23:00.000-05:002013-05-22T21:23:55.643-05:00DandelionYesterday a very "weedy" day--in the sense that I woke up with the glums and felt like "a weed by the wall," as Emerson says, well into the evening. A few bright points, though, including some good hard work out back in the garden, digging post holes, and a very pleasant guitar lesson, which I'd originally planned to cancel, since I hadn't had time to practice. Evidently the focus I need to play "Blue Monk," even quite badly, is enough to take my mind out of its blue grooves. <br />
<br />
Today, by contrast, I woke up in a rather chipper mood, and have managed to keep myself fed and watered well enough to be, if not a "God in nature," at least a hardy and flourishing and cheerful sort of weed. A dandelion, perhaps.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
My popular romance class meets from 2:40-4:10 pm. It's not a particularly lively time slot; in fact, many of my colleagues avoid it, because the students tend to be sleepy, as do their professors. Monday I had that problem, despite the lovely Thai iced coffee I'd had for lunch, or maybe because of it. (The timing was off, I suspect--caffeine peaked too early, then faded mid-class, and the sugar rush wore off as well.) Today I had a lighter lunch and brought a mug of coffee right into class, to sip as I taught, and things went much better, at least at my end. The one thing I forgot to do was check my little pedometer before and after class--I'm curious how many steps I take, pacing about as I teach!<br />
<br />
Even though many students hadn't finished the novel we were wrapping up this afternoon (Beverly Jenkins' <i>Something Like Love</i>), I had a fun day teasing out some ideas about it with the ones who had, and I came to some new insights about the book as well, on the fly, which is my favorite kind of class. Two of those ideas were quite unplanned and unnoted (in my own notes, I mean), so I think I'll put them here for safekeeping. <br />
<br />
The first has to do with the way this novel displaces the "Point of Ritual Death" from its central love story--which never <i>really</i> seems in danger--to the secondary plot revolving around our heroine's parents. At least, I think that's what happens: I said so in class, but I was speaking off the cuff; I'd have to reread that portion of the novel to check, but it's worth investigating.<br />
<br />
The second is about the way this novel ends up being as much about its father / daughter plot as about its central love story--"about" in the sense of "emotionally centered on," I guess I mean, and I should add that this means "emotionally centered on, <i>for me</i>." That plot takes up very little of the novel, page for page, but it's quite interesting, psychologically, and of course since this was the first romance novel that my own daughter read, there's some personal resonance as well. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Most sessions in my Teaching Popular Culture class this quarter have had a guest speaker, and tonight's is no exception: it's a talk on teaching non-fiction prose (journalism, etc.) in popular culture, with an eye to the new Common Core standards that schools are adopting. I have no idea what our guest will say, but she's an alumna of my poetry teaching seminars, and has visited my classes in the past to talk about teaching poetry through performance. The tricky part will be what to do with the final 90 minutes of class--I really have no idea what we'll discuss, so I've run off a piece from Slate.com about the literary status of books with "likeable characters" and will fall back on that, if need be.<br />
<br />
Time to make a cup of coffee and prepare!<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Eileen was wonderful--details to follow. Very good end to day. :)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-90880446769615434302013-05-19T09:38:00.001-05:002013-05-19T09:38:24.244-05:00Moods, Shoes, FeetThree or four days a week--sometimes more--I slog through what feels a lot like despair. I say "feels like," because it's really a physiological thing, caused by a bad night's sleep, or not eating enough, or both. A nap and / or a meal will fix me up, or at least get me out of the slough of despond. When I'm in it, though, that simple cure is hard to remember, and when the mood passes, as it eventually does, it's hard to remember why I ever let it grip me so long.<br />
<br />
"Our moods do not believe in each other," saith the Preacher (OK, saith Emerson, in "<a href="http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/rwemerson/bl-rwemer-essays-10.htm" target="_blank">Experience</a>"),<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To-day I am full of thoughts, and can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the same thought, the same power of expression, to–morrow. What I write, whilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world; but yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was that wrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this infirm faith, this will not strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God in nature; I am a weed by the wall.</blockquote>
Got a good night's sleep last night, and woke up feeling great; now I'm getting "weed by the wall"-y again. <br />
<br />
Time for second breakfast, I guess.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I clock about 3.5-5 miles a day on my feet, walking, and even when I'm not walking, I'm often standing (as I am when I write this, for example). Two weeks ago I went for a lovely run with my wife, a little more than 4 miles, but the shoes I chose weren't nearly supportive enough of my ankles and arches. As a result, I had to hobble around in pain for about 11 days, and even today my right foot feels a bit wonky.<br />
<br />
Like most things, this had a silver lining: I tossed out a lot of old, worn, ill-fitting shoes that I'd put up for years, mostly out of laziness, and I'm gradually acquiring some spiffy new footwear, all of it suited to my increasingly delicate "pedal extremities," as Fats Waller calls them. A sobering reminder, though, that I'm not the lad I once was, able to leap tall buildings--or, at least, to jog around them--without injury.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<br />
Here's a Neruda poem I discovered back in my teens--translation by Donald Walsh, if memory serves.<br />
<br />
"Tus Pies," por Pablo Neruda<br />
<br />
<i>Cuando no puedo mirar tu cara</i><br />
<i>miro tus pies.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Tus pies de hueso arqueado,</i><br />
<i>tus pequeños pies duros.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Yo sé que te sostienen,</i><br />
<i>y que tu dulce peso</i><br />
<i>sobre ellos se levanta.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Tu cintura y tus pechos,</i><br />
<i>la duplicada púrpura
de tus pezones,</i><br />
<i>la caja de tus ojos
que recién han volado,</i><br />
<i>tu ancha boca de fruta,</i><br />
<i>tu cabellera roja,</i><br />
<i>pequeña torre mía.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Pero no amo tus pies</i><br />
<i>sino porque anduvieron</i><br />
<i>sobre la tierra y sobre</i><br />
<i>el viento y sobre el agua,</i><br />
<i>hasta que me encontraron.</i><br />
<br />
Your Feet<br />
<br />
When I cannot look at your face<br />
I look at your feet.<br />
<br />
Your feet of arched bone,<br />
your hard little feet.<br />
<br />
I know that they support you,<br />
and that your gentle weight<br />
rises upon them.<br />
<br />
Your waist and your breasts,<br />
the doubled purple
of your nipples,<br />
the sockets of your eyes<br />
that have just flown away,<br />
your wide fruit mouth,<br />
your red tresses,
my little tower.<br />
<br />
But I love your feet
only<br />
because they walked<br />
upon the earth and upon<br />
the wind and upon the waters,<br />
until they found me.<br />
<br />
(One quibble: my Spanish isn't great, but doesn't this translation lose the snap and surprise of the linebreak in the final stanza? "But I don't love your feet / Except in that they walked..." That's too stilted in the second line, but you need, I think, to preserve the flatly negative "<i>no amo</i>" somehow.)<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-46615988013012826542013-05-03T09:26:00.000-05:002013-05-03T15:27:45.703-05:00Here's How it Happens...Here's how it happens, sometimes.<br />
<br />
I'm noodling around on my mandola, and notice (again) that the fret edges are kind of rough. Not an uncommon problem, especially in climates like this where you have very dry, heated air in the house many months of the year. <br />
<br />
Also notice a little rattle on the low C string, though I can't tell where it's coming from, exactly. And, come to think of it, there are some broken brads on the tailpiece, and I'm missing a string. Poor thing could use a little TLC, couldn't it?<br />
<br />
Now, if I get all those things fixed--a new set of strings, a new tailpiece, a fret job--that's going to cost...well, I'm not entirely sure. Somewhere between one and two hundred dollars, I'm guessing. If I don't do them, though, I'm much less likely to play the instrument. <br />
<br />
In fact, if I put a little <i>more</i> into the instrument, adding a pickup, I might even play it more, since I could do the rhythm parts for the klezmer band on it. <br />
<br />
But wouldn't I rather spend that money on something else, like some vocal lessons? In fact, I've thought a lot, over the years, about selling this mandola, not least in order to help finance (and justify) buying something else. And I don't enjoy playing it quite as much as the mandolin. Never have.<br />
<br />
But would it sell if I don't put some work / money into it? <br />
<br />
So I can spend one to two hundred <i>on</i> it, or try to get roughly the same amount <i>out </i>of it. Which is the better plan?<br />
<br />
10, maybe 15, 20 minutes gone! <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<br />
I'm listening to The XX on my computer, and Rhapsody, the service I'm using, flashes a little description of the band on screen. It mentions that you can hear echoes of this or that artist in The XX, one of whom is Chris Isaak.<br />
<br />
Instantly, I think of Chris Isaak playing a big hollow-body guitar, and the thought comes to me: "what kind of guitar was that?" <br />
<br />
A moment later, as I open a web browser to look up Chris Isaak's guitar--I think it's some kind of Gretsch--I'm picturing myself playing that sort of instrument, wondering whether I'd ever use the Bigsby vibrato on it, and recalling a guitarist I saw once, my sophomore year at college, playing a hollow-body guitar. Was that a Gretsch, too? What did he play? (It was for a production of some Garcia Llorca play, I remember.) <br />
<br />
This triggers another round of associations. One of my colleagues has a Gretsch, at work, I think. Billy Zoom played a Gretsch, but not a hollow-body. Wasn't there a signature model? Click and check: yes there was, but it's hideously expensive. And would I want to play something that flashy? <br />
<br />
Picturing myself with it, playing with the Alte Rockers, reminds me that I don't play on all that many songs, because I'm not really all that good on the instrument. But it would be fun!<br />
<br />
That's five, maybe ten minutes I could have spent practicing the lovely instrument behind me. I have a piece I'm trying to memorize, and every five minutes helps.<br />
<br />
Hmmm...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-79489981570865119912013-05-02T15:01:00.003-05:002013-05-02T16:05:52.736-05:00To Be Read?I quite like the title of this book by Michael Wood: <i><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=3a0dUPU9n2QC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Literature and the Taste of Knowledge</a></i>. I don't know how useful it will be, and not knowing that, I'm not likely to read it, at least under current circumstances, but it's a title worth savoring. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
My friend and colleague David wrote up a list for me of "50 good books of poetry published this century, and two that are forthcoming." I don't know when I'll get to these, if ever, but I'd like to preserve & publish the suggestions.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>52 21st Century Books</b><br />Paige Ackerson-Kiely, <i>In No Man’s Land</i><br />Cynthia Arrieu-King, <i>Manifest</i><br />Beth Bachman, <i>Temper</i><br />Quan Barry, <i>Controvertibles</i><br />John Beer, <i>The Wasteland and Other Poems</i><br />Jaswinder Bolina, <i>Phantom Camera</i><br />Joel Brouwer, <i>And So</i><br />Suzzane Buffam, <i>The Irrationalist</i><br />CM Burroughs, <i>The Vital System</i><br />Ashley Capps, <i>Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields</i><br />Arda Collins, <i>It Is Daylight</i><br />Eduardo C. Corral, <i>Slow Lightning</i><br />Olena Kalytiak Davis, <i>Shattered Sonnets Love Cards and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities</i><br />Michael Dickman, <i>Flies</i><br />Lidija Dimkovska, <i>Do Not Awaken Them with Hammers</i><br />Russell Edson, <i>The Tormented Mirror</i><br />Graham Foust, <i>Necessary Stranger</i><br />John Gallaher, <i>The Little Book of Guesses</i><br />Hannah Rebecca Gamble, <i>Your Invitation to a Modest Breakfast</i><br />Stacy Gnall, <i>Heart First Into the Forest</i><br />Gabriel Gudding, <i>A Defense of Poetry</i><br />Saskia Hamilton, <i>As for Dream</i><br />Matthea Harvey, <i>Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form</i><br />Terrence Hayes, <i>Lighthead</i><br />Bob Hicok, <i>Animal Soul</i><br />Jay Hopler, <i>Green Squall</i><br />Laura Kasischke, <i>Space, In Chains</i><br />Suji Kwock Kim, <i>Notes from the Divided Country</i><br />Jennifer Kronovet, <i>Awayward</i><br />Katherine Larson, <i>Radial Symmetry </i><br />Ben Lerner, <i>The Lichtenberg Figures</i><br />Sandra Lim, <i>The Wilderness </i>(forthcoming)<br />Cynthia Lowen, <i>The Cloud that Contained the Lightning</i> (forthcoming)<br />Sarah Manguso, <i>The Captain Lands in Paradise</i><br />Anna Maschovakis, <i>You and Three Others are Approaching a Lake</i><br />Malena Morling, <i>Astoria</i><br />Meghan O’Rourke, <i>Halflife</i><br />Cecily Parks,<i> Field Folly Snow</i><br />Patrick Phillips, <i>Chattahoochee</i><br />Kevin Prufer, <i>National Anthem</i><br />Claudia Rankine, <i>Don’t Let Me Be Lonely</i><br />Srikanth Reddy, <i>Voyager</i><br />Kay Ryan, <i>The Niagara River</i><br />Brenda Shaughnessy, <i>Human Dark with Sugar</i><br />James Shea,<i> Star In the Eye</i><br />Zachary Schomburg, <i>Fjords, Vol. 1</i><br />Frederick Seidel, <i>Ooga-Booga</i><br />Richard Siken, <i>Crush</i><br />Tracy K. Smith, <i>Life On Mars</i><br />Peter Streckfus, <i>The Cuckoo</i><br />G.C. Waldrep, <i>Disclamor</i><br />Jean Valentine, <i>Little Boat</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>***</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As long as I'm listing books to read, here are some award-winners that the PCA just announced--not the whole list, but a trio that I might want to come back to, on leave: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Ray and Pat Browne Award Best Reference/Primary Source Work: </b><br />
Sianne Ngai <br />
<i>Our Aesthetic Categories: zany, cute, interesting </i><br />
Harvard University Press 2012 </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Susan Koppelman Award Best Anthology, Multi-Authored, or Edited Work in Feminist Studies: </b><br />
Alma Garcia<br />
<i>Contested Images: Women of Color in Popular Culture</i><br />
AltaMira Press 2012 </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>John G. Cawelti Award Best Textbook/Primer:</b><br />
Timothy D. Taylor<br />
<i>The Sounds of Capitalism: Advertising, Music, and the Conquest of Culture </i><br />
The University of Chicago Press 2012</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wistfully, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
E</div>
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-67573156431724895272013-05-01T10:17:00.000-05:002013-05-01T10:17:59.314-05:00Afresh, Afresh, Afresh<br />
As I walked around the park with my wife this morning, we noticed that the trees were finally leafing out, some quite exuberantly. This poem came to mind, by Phillip Larkin:<br />
<blockquote>
The Trees </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The trees are coming into leaf<br />
Like something almost being said;<br />
The recent buds relax and spread,<br />
Their greenness is a kind of grief. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Is it that they are born again<br />
And we grow old? No, they die too.<br />
Their yearly trick of looking new<br />
Is written down in rings of grain. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Yet still the unresting castles thresh<br />
In fullgrown thickness every May.<br />
Last year is dead, they seem to say,<br />
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.</blockquote>
I hadn't noticed until now the pun that links stanzas two and three: "grain," as in the grain of a piece of wood, setting up "thresh," which is what one does to grain after it's been harvested, as well as a lovely bit of onomatopoeia for the way those leafy branches move in the wind. The same way that a Nativity painting will often subtly foreshadow the crucifixion, Larkin's spring poem foreshadows the fall. <br />
<br />
Not sure what to do with "castles" yet, but it will probably come to me. <br />
<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-37414414423593713672013-01-14T05:58:00.002-06:002013-01-14T05:58:42.885-06:00All this HappinessI took a few weeks off from blogging and other on-line life--a little longer than I'd planned, actually. Meant to come back a week ago, but a nasty virus really walloped me just as the school year began, and every moment I didn't absolutely <i>have</i> to be doing something (teaching, prepping classes, family business) I pretty much had to lie down and sleep. At one point I tried to <i>sit </i>down and get some things done, and I promptly fell asleep in the chair: it was one of those bugs.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I felt a little better yesterday, and this morning the swollen glands and awful fatigue are both fading, so here I am. Huzzah! <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
The Christmas break was taken up with lots of nicely physical projects. We redid my son's bedroom, giving it a new coat of paint (a lovely earth-tone called "toasted cashew," instead of the pastel he'd had since childhood) and buying him some new furnishings to go with it. My wife and I then swapped work spaces here at home, as I've urged her to do for several months now. That was a bigger job: my son and I had to get a treadmill down two flights of stairs, and the whole family pitched in to bring her files and computer equipment upstairs and mine down, along with doing another fresh paint job. Very joyous work, though, and since R works at home, it's a real transformation of her day-to-day, hour-to-hour life. Me, I'm snugly situated back on my treadmill, my body in the basement and my mind in cyberspace, surrounded by twice the bookshelves that I had upstairs. Improvements all 'round. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Today, one more make-over is on the agenda: a new couch! One of my wife's friends from quilting turned out to be selling a lovely matching couch and easy chair, both leather, both quite out of reach for us, new, so we're off to rent a truck and bring them home. We've practically worn through our current couch, which we've had for about 15 years, so the timing is fortuitous. Nice to have a strapping nearly-17-year-old son around for these big moving jobs, though--I gave my lower back quite a hard time, doing the study-swap. Might need to focus on strengthening that, rather than on pushups or pull-ups, in the coming year. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Well, the couch moving went quite well, with lots of handy activity associated with it (driving a truck, taking screen doors off hinges, etc.). When it was done, though, my son needed to drive off to school to work on lights for an upcoming dance concert. <br />
<br />
A short while later, frantic ringing on the doorbell: my son had been in an automobile accident on the way to school. <br />
<br />
No one hurt, thank goodness, but the other driver's car needed to be towed, and he'd been so flustered at the accident site he'd locked himself out of mine. My daughter was on our phone at home, and neither R nor I had our cell phones on us, so we'd missed his calls and texts. Finally, the local police had simply given him a ride home to get an extra key. <br />
<br />
I gave him one, and they drove him off, back to the cars, to get things sorted. <br />
<br />
What a slender thread it all hangs by, all this happiness!E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-46610959226043178332012-12-26T10:25:00.001-06:002012-12-26T10:25:45.503-06:00Baseline 49So, with 363 days left until I turn 50, where am I, on various fronts?<br />
<br />
Professionally, I feel pretty good. The promotion meant a lot to me, as you probably know; having gotten it, I've relaxed a bit about productivity in the abstract, although I'm still doing more editing and less writing than I'd like. Over the coming year I'd like to shift that ratio somewhat, by working on my romance book: first the Susan Elizabeth Phillips piece, this winter and spring, and then the Mary Bly / Eloisa James one in the summer. I'd also like to systematize my work on the Popular Romance Project, so that it doesn't feel quite so scattered. The product, I'm happy with; it's the process that needs work.<br />
<br />
One professional goal I do have is to invest a bit more in my teaching. It's suffered, in the last couple of years, as I've focused on getting my publication record up to snuff. I'm less connected with my students than I'd like, and also with the courses themselves--often I feel like I'm flailing, unsure of what to teach and why I'm teaching it. So some reflection on all that seems in order, in the year to come.<br />
<br />
The other is to improve my mind through extensive reading. I feel like I've grown a bit stale, both in terms of the primary texts I know (in romance and even more so in poetry) and in terms of the secondary reading and ideas I work with, day to day. Going back on Facebook immediately cut into my blog reading, I've noticed, so I'm going to need to push back against that, not least because, where romance is concerned, blogs are often where the scholarly action is, well before it reaches print. (They're also prime recruiting ground for the Popular Romance Project.)<b> </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Overall, though, the anxieties that beset me, professionally, not long ago seem to be melting away as the reality of the promotion sets in. As the year ends, it's more like: "Professional life? <i>Check!</i><br />
<br />
Family life? Things looking good on this front, too. Wonderful marriage, wonderful children: the joys of my life. Plans for this year? Just to try and make things a little nicer for my wife by switching offices--hers has been in the basement since we moved into the house, and mine in a spare bedroom--and for my son by helping him repaint and refurnish his room. He'll be off to college soon, and wants, he says, to "leave the room better than he found it." Me, I want to enjoy this last year and a half at home with him as much as I can--not sure what that will entail, practically speaking, but I'll keep my eyes open.<br />
<br />
Not sure if this counts as "family life," but I'm very excited about starting jazz guitar lessons this January, also. I've been trying to switch from thinking in terms of acquiring instruments to thinking about acquiring skills on the ones I have: what are the songs I want to play, really? What do I want to be able to sit down and do? One of my biggest successes from the summer was learning the chords to "Summer Samba," which I play with great pleasure all the time; I'm currently working on some changes to various torch songs ("In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning"; "One for my Baby and One More for the Road") and really enjoying the process. Much more interested in playing such songs or taking on bossa nova than in learning rock riffs or licks, and with five months of lessons lined up, I'm quite hopeful for the coming year. <br />
<br />
What else do I want to use as a baseline, so that I can measure how the year plays out?<br />
<br />
I'm holding level at about 155 pounds, more or less. (The home scale isn't terribly accurate, so that might be a pound or two off, but I can use it for comparison's sake.) I can drop and do 60 push-ups in a single set, no problem. (Just checked: yup, 60.) That number has been higher in the recent past--I've hit 100 a couple of summers in a row--but only at the end of steady workout regimes. Let's call 60 the baseline as the year begins. I can also do one pull-up, unassisted, and I think those will be my new fitness focus, if I can keep the push-ups going, too. More metrics: according to my friends at RescueTime, I'm spending about 3 hours a week on social networking, and anywhere between 30 minutes and...can this be right? <i>3 hours </i>on "shopping," which is the category that includes all of my instrument browsing on line. <br />
<br />
Wow. So there's something to work on: paring that down. I've managed to do so with "News and Opinion," on which I never seem to spend more than an hour, week by week, and usually less. (Blogs count as "reference and learning." Let's see if we can get that number up, shall we?)<br />
<br />
OK--if I were going full-on Bridget Jones here I'd start noting alcohol units and such, but I think this is enough to get me started on the new year. <br />
<br />
Off to Home Depot for primer and paint--my son's room awaits!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11921782.post-87971043861625840872012-12-24T08:39:00.001-06:002012-12-24T08:44:30.883-06:00Update and Baseline (1)Whew! What month--well, a good three weeks--it's been.<br />
<br />
First there was a book manuscript to review for a press.<br />
<br />
Then, really quickly, there was that paid leave grant application to write and turn in. <br />
<br />
To do that, I had to think through and write up an overview, chapter by chapter, of my romance fiction monograph. Which isn't written yet. Which I've avoided thinking through and writing up, because whenever I do, I see all the holes had problems with it. But which I had to do, so I did it, and it felt good, looked good, sounded good. Well, good enough.<br />
<br />
Then I had to get a bunch of ducks in a row for PCA, and send a lot of overdue emails and things for JPRS.<br />
<br />
Then I had to report for jury duty, which meant that I had to have a day cleared out, to spend at the courthouse, with the rest of the week cleared out, too, just in case I got called to serve.<br />
<br />
Then I spent the day at the courthouse, and wasn't called. Huzzah! Free for another year, at least, and I got to read some fun P. G. Wodehouse novels on the Kindle while I waited. Not a bad day.<br />
<br />
Which was a good thing, too, because it turned out there was a bunch of work still to do for PCA. <br />
<br />
Which I did, and started writing up lyrics for this year's Purim songs.<br />
<br />
Which has turned out to be harder than I remembered, but I'm plugging away at it. <br />
<br />
(So far, the only one that's come easily is the Paul Simon parody, "(You must read) <i>Fifty Shades</i> to be a Lover.")<br />
<br />
Then there was, what? Well, the schedule cleared, and I did some holiday shopping, some birthday shopping, some fun. Put some smooth-wound strings on my guitar, and signed up for jazz guitar lessons at the local cultural center, which will start in January. Calmed down, and as I did, seemed to get happier and happier, as the days progressed. Yay! <br />
<br />
A lesson there, somewhere.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
In the Jewish calendar, there's a 10-day period of soul-searching, etc., between Rosh Hashanah, the new year, and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. I don't really celebrate either of those, but I do find that the 10 days between the Winter Solstice and the secular New Year pretty much do the same thing for me. <br />
<br />
Psychologically, I find that having the days start to get longer really boosts my mood, even if that's more a fact I know than a turn I perceive on my daily walks, at first. Also, I tend to set the 21st as the target day for me to finish work and start my holiday, since that's when my kids get off from school. It feels like a turning point, or rather the start of a slow curve into something new.<br />
<br />
Then comes my birthday--49, this year!--more on which in a moment.<br />
<br />
Then there's Christmas, which always gets me thinking about time's passage. (I used to be very uncomfortable with the family celebration, and now I'm not; in fact, I quite enjoy it. Noticing how much I do, and thinking back to my old aversion, always gets me musing about how things change.)<br />
<br />
Then there's the big one: the 28th, my late father's birthday. I think about him a lot, at this time of year, partly because I miss him keenly, partly because I think about what he'd say about things that I'm up to, and partly because I always compare who I am now, and what I'm up to, to what I remember of him at my age. A lot of soul-searching stirred up by all that, and sometimes resolutions, too.<br />
<br />
After which--perfectly timed!--comes the new year. There was a time, 7 or 8 years ago, when I felt so cocky at the end of the year that when someone asked me my New Year's resolution, it was "Keep Up the Good Work!" Not quite at that point now, but I feel pretty good about where things stand on many fronts. <br />
<br />
Next post will be about that, and where I want to go from here.<br />
<br />
<br />E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.com3