My Ireland

Spain was lovely, but I of course took a few days to go over to the mistress land, my Ireland. I don't think I could ever be in Europe without going to Ireland for at least a couple of days.

Missing Spain

What I cherish so much about Europe is the way in which people approach each day. Sure, work must get done and it does, but what really seems to count is what Omar Khayyam referred to as "The leaves of life falling one by one." The countries I have visited all seem full of people sucking the marrow out of each day.

This summer in Spain I saw so many lovers holding each other on benches or spread out upon a blanket in a park. Like Khayyam's famous Rubaiyat, what seemed to matter most was the company of your love, a loaf of bread, a book of verse, and some wine.

I feel so far from Spain. I search for it each day and I wonder if I've lost it. Should I just give in and rush to Subway to get a 5$ sub? I don't think so. I have so much more living to do and I can see no more fulfilling way to do it than what I have observed, what I have immersed myself in during the last 8 years of my life spending summers in Europe.

Spain, I'll keep searching for ways to live like the way you taught me.

What makes up your Paella?

Look at this gorgeous plate of paella. There is a bizarre, at least to these Ohioan taste buds, mixture of foods ranging from a plethora of seafood to a plethora of vegetables. And yet, each bite tasted different from the previous one. Tastes tramped around my mouth and every new taste seemed to complement the previous.

I returned from Spain a few weeks ago and I am trying to figure out how I can unleash my taste buds here in Ohio. Literally, I can't. No food here can compare to what I have eaten in Spain. But how can I equate the plate of paella to my life?

Again, it comes back to balance. Look at the balance of food on the plate. What tiny pieces make up my paella. Writing has to be the clams. I have to dig to find writer Jen, but she's really important to the whole mix. Other parts of my life that need reflection in order to find out where they fit on my paella plate are: runner Jen or my commitment to exercise, family, preparation for the future, culture and travel, love for Telemachus & Edith, being a teacher as well as being a continuous learner, prayer, time with my Pete, and time for me. I may have skipped some things.

I was glad to come home to my loved ones, but honestly, Spain is a magical place and like a few other countries I have visited, the Spanish seem to know not only how to balance life, but to enjoy it. I need to work on that. I need to learn how to be in the moment instead of in my head concocting ideas.

I look forward to blogging more. It may be about writing or it may be about my recent travels, or perhaps it will be about my beautiful Telemachus & Edith. Whatever I blog about, it will go back to that plate of paella. Blogging will help me explore what is on my plate that shouldn't be and what needs to be on my plate that isn't.

AWOL

Though I am only averaging one poem a month as well as some nonfiction mutterings, I am still putting that MFA to good use. For the past few years I have been thinking about creating a writing outreach program and finally, I did it. Of course, it took a great group of 11th graders to attempt such a thing.

AWOL, Aspiring Writers Outreach Locally, launched last week. My 4th period class is completing Honors English 11 coursework at home and in class on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, I teach them how to teach writing. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, they (in pairs) go to an elementary class to run little writing workshops.

So far so good.

I am busy busy busy: teach, administrate, write (or think about writing), and run.

Still, I have time to read so if you have any ideas on making an outreach program a success or even just a lesson idea, please comment.

Sea-grass & bottle, Ireland, County Mayo

Does Jennifer enjoy life?

This question was posted on my Facebook page by my mother. I just taught her how to use Facebook last weekend and now she is out of control. She also posted at least 8 other questions. The questions were things like, "Would you date Jennifer?" or "Do you think Jennifer likes dogs?" I had to laugh. I mean, my Facebook is mostly used for professional purposes. I am friends with a plethora of people from writers to students to parents of students to friends to teachers to old high school friends.

I'm not sure "Would you date Jennifer?" is an appropriate question.

Anyway, I deleted all of the questions except "DOES JENNIFER ENJOY LIFE?" I thought that was a strange question. It turns out that my response ended up being more of a list of times and people that make my little heart swell with thankfulness. So I thought I would share the list with the world.

Does Jennifer enjoy life?

Let's see...once she fell in love with van Gogh's letters and then she retraced his life in France from death to St. Remy to Arles to Paris.

She fell in love with Ireland and decided to wed herself to the Cliffs of Moher. She's returned every other summer (once even three times in a year) to see those cliffs.

No matter how much it humiliates her boyfriend, Jennifer dresses up the loves of her life, Telemachus & Edith, in ridiculously adorable clothes that say things like "Pugs not Drugs" or "Pug Life."

The Jeep Wrangler days. Top rolled down. The peace birthed by a little Eazy-E or Chet Baker. No obstacle the Jeep couldn't overcome.

And the snowboarding days that hopefully aren't over. Vermont. Countless trips to Colorado, Whistler in Vancouver...and the most thrilling, (though she did get lost for three hours) the Austrian Alps.

There is a girl named Kelly who Jennifer has spent many many days with enjoying life. There have been makeshift fire batons, evenings at Border's, trips to Detroit to be with other Red Wings freaks, and evenings spent on the patio doing nothing at all, except looking at baby ducks.

And there are three women, one now passed on, who love Jennifer more than she could ever ask or sometimes even want to be loved: Mom, Aunt Linda, and Bubba.

Now Jennifer is driven to defy her body and become a runner. A half-marathon in May awaits.

So does Barcelona in June, with a little side trip to the mistress land of Ireland. Jennifer and her friend will backpack Spain like they are 22, not 32. They will jump ship to Africa for a few days and see what that has to offer.

Does Jennifer enjoy life? Not always. But she is present in life. Mostly, she feels alive. And though she is not happy every moment of the day, she is usually thankful.

Oh...and because of all of the traveling, she is also always broke.

One more backpacking summer

I have managed to do it again.

A plane ticket to Europe. June. Barcelona.

When I return a new stage begins.

I feel the nakedness of my finger. I feel the warmth that awaits. Princess-cut, perhaps.

I never thought I'd say this. Never. I want marriage. I want children.

I feel lucky just thinking about it. I feel loved.

And going to Spain will be pretty cool as well.

Teaching Cormac McCarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy was a summer reading choice for my students. The students who chose McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel are happy, happy readers. I haven't heard one complaint about the novel.

Today we had a great day. We have a lot of these. A student, for his presentation, put us into groups of four (I love presentations because I get to be a student). We had to leave the classroom for a bit while the student hid bags of food. Then, we took turns scavenging the classroom for the food, which of course was a bunch of candy. When it wasn't our turn to scavenge for food, we sat in the hallway and wrote in our writer's notebook about whether or not we would be a good guy or a bad guy as defined by McCarthy's novel.

The students who didn't choose The Road as a summer reading book are all headed to the library to get a copy. A movie was recently made and should be out in theaters at the end of this month. I am hoping to take the students on a field trip to see it. Viggo Mortenson will be playing the father.

For those of you who haven't read The Road, I suggest that you do. It is about a post-apocalyptic world where a man and his son travel along a road in hopes of finding some place that is not dead. The few humans left in this charred world are mostly cannibals. There is a line near the beginning of the book. I don't have the book with me, but the line says something like "If the words of the boy were not of God then God never spoke." It's a breathtaking book about the love of a father and son and the microscopic hint of hope that lingers in a cold and dead world.

High school teacher mutterings

In education classes (or during boring professional development days) we learn about the importance of student led conferences. Any one-on-one time you spend with a student is highly beneficial, but for me, there is something even more beneficial, or at least more practical than student led conferences.

The truth is that when you have 20-30 kids in a class it is nearly impossible to meet with students more than once every few weeks and even that is unlikely. What I have observed as most beneficial to high school students is to teach them how to speak to each other about literature. It is through higher level discussions that my students learn to talk about books. It is through intense writing workshops that they learn how to talk to each other about writing.

I learned how to facilitate this type of learning environment through my graduate writing classes. I wish more high school teachers could see the value of the workshop. It’s definitely hard work and requires more time, but it is invigorating and more valuable to students and their learning.

So many high school teachers are stuck in the swamp of simple comprehension questions. Do you need to know who wrote a book? Yes! Do you need to be able to recall the name of the apartment complex a character lived in at the beginning of the book? That would be nice, but I think it is much more valuable that you can discuss the character’s growth and flaw…

I don't know what the future holds for me. I am not sure if I want to always teach high school. The thought of doing any one thing for my entire life makes me feel a sense of dread. However, I do think I have something to say about teaching. I usually don't blog much about it, but I think I will start sharing snippets of what I have learned and what I am still learning in the classroom.

As a teacher...

It's hard to always be positive. The more I challenge students, the more the parents challenge me about grades. The more time I spend working on things for the classroom, the less time I have on my own writing.

I confessed to Mark Doty (a few weeks ago at his reading/craft talk) that teaching at the high school level sometimes, many times drains me. He said that I have to be able to on occasion say, "Make this. Okay good, now go make another one."

And then there is Facebook, and being department head, and....you get it. I'm always so friendly and optimistic. I'm full of ideas and help.

I'm not sure where I can really be myself. I don't even allow complaints on my blog either, really.

The truth is, I am mostly optimistic and I do truly love helping students, but somewhere in the past near decade I have lost the ability to allow myself the once-in-a-while public sigh. Or the, "I'm sorry, I just don't have time." As a result of this public image martyr syndrome, the people closest to me suffer.

For me, being a great teacher means being an okay writer, a sometimey friend, an unfocused girlfriend, and a distant daughter. Add running into the equation and time is even more scarce. I must find balance. There are so many wonderful teachers who are also wonderful at their other roles in life. I must figure this out.

Hand-me-downs

When I was a little girl, I used to get my cousin's hand-me-down clothes. I was always so excited to sort through the boxes that my aunt would send.

Now Edith gets my cousin's dog Gracie's hand-me-downs. Gracie is an adorable Boston Terrier, and lucky for Edith, Gracie must have had a growing spurt. My cousin sent Edith at least ten new outfits, some still had a tag.

My Iron Spine: A Review

New Zealand writer Helen Rickerby’s second book, My Iron Spine, is poignant, witty, tender, fun, and moving.

Rickerby has organized the book into three sections. The first section, Flashes of déjà vu, is compiled mostly of autobiographical pieces. A charming voice waltzes through the narrative, saying things like, I was playing hungry / hungry hippos / when my grandmother died or I wonder / if the Kingdom of Heaven / is like the Titanic- / not enough lifeboats.

A striking poem in this section is Eleven Fragments of God. Rickerby poetically meanders through questions, stories, and dialogue, pertaining not only to metaphysics, but also to personal grief. Corsets and comforts titles the second section of My Iron Spine. The poet writes in the persona of several women, including Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary Shelley, and Sylvia Plath.

In the third and final section, Laughing at Ophelia, the poet invents a world where she spends time with an array of historical women. Check out a few of the titles: Burning with Joan of Arc, Swimming Lessons with Virginia Woolf, Housework with Linda and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Kate Sheppard and I go for a Ride. In the final poem, Rickerby hangs out with New Zealand born writer Katherine Mansfield. The poem, titled Partying with Katherine Mansfield starts out ‘Don’t be a bore,” says Katie / as she pulls me up by my arm / to the dance floor.

At times My Iron Spine is akin to Anne Carson’s The Glass Essay. Rickerby seamlessly layers her work with research, autobiography, and imagination. What more could a reader want from a book of poetry? Rickerby is a poet who celebrates women and their lives. Most of all, she celebrates their voices.

My Iron Spine is available through Amazon.

Gettin' paid for poetry

This is a milestone, I suppose. Aside from winning money for contests, I have never been paid for publishing a poem. So here it is, my first check from a magazine. I hope Firstmerit can cash checks from New Zealand. What is even better than receiving a check? Seeing your poem in JAAM 27. The magazine looks gorgeous. Thanks to the editor of JAAM, Helen Rickerby. My next post will be a short review of Helen's stunning, new book, My Iron Spine. I am currently savoring each poem.

Faces only a mother could love?

Of course not! Everyone can see the striking beauty in these two faces. The top picture is Telemachus; the bottom picture is Edith.

Writing as Excavation

In his craft talk at The University of Akron last week Mark Doty said that there is a tendency for poets not to reach far enough in their poems. We get swamped by our own craft and somehow that attention to craft prevents us from truly exploring our poem and its possibilities.

Here are some of the tips Doty shared:

• Get better at tolerating your own messiness.


• Suspend the need to judge yourself during the process of writing.


• Practice not finishing a poem.


• Excavate and explore before polishing.

Inspiration Isn't Quite Enough

Inspiration was always easy to find, sprinkling itself across the surface of the strangest places and people.

Then craft was born, largely because of a few professors who took me and my writing under their writer wings.

With grad school came deadlines which disguised themselves as the developing of a writer's work ethic.

And then I graduated and somehow became so obsessed with what I deemed to be perfection in my own craft that I had lost the ability to actually sit down and allow myself to make things with words.

Mark Doty reminded me last night that inspiration arrives first. Then comes the push. As writers we must learn how to marry what is given as inspiration with the will to see what we can make of it.

I practice this marriage as a runner. Honestly, without the push, the inspiration is useless. If I didn't push myself to run, I wouldn't even be a runner.

Now I must do the same with writing.

ATTEMPT

I've not been moved lately. Tonight, I was.

I saw Paul Lisicky and Mark Doty at The University of Akron. They gave a craft talk.

It was just what I needed. I will spread some of the brilliant things they said throughout my next few posts.

I need to go to bed soon. Tomorrow I am running a 4 mile race. This will be the longest race I've done. When I come home from the race, I am going to write, for the first time in quite a while.

Paul Lisicky said that when he doesn't write, he's sick. Me, too. Post-MFA has been a constant case of the writing blues sniffles. Paul also said that he allows himself to sit down and attempt to make something rather than actually make something. I like that.

Tomorrow I am going to ATTEMPT to run 4 miles. Tomorrow I am going to ATTEMPT to make something with words.

Summer Nap

Painting the Summer Away

This summer I've busied myself with apartment redecorating. I don't have a camera so this picture is from my cell phone. My kitchen was so boring with everything white white white. I decided to use a deep brown not only to contrast with the white, but also to contrast with the yellow.

For me, summer is about recharging and preparing for the academic year. This is the first summer in 8 years that I am not either taking a class or backpacking in Europe. So, HGTV has provided me with something constructive.

My next task is designing a new writing room.

Happy 1st Birthday to Edith