Happy 1st Birthday to Edith

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

In my attempt to eat fresh, healthy food without cooking every single day, I have discovered the pure joy of organizing what my boyfriend and I now call "a tray" for dinner once a week.

The above is a picture of the first official tray night. We picked out the food together: Havarti cheese, Italian bread, shrimp, cottage cheese, cherry tomatoes, and prosciutto. After returning from the grocery store, I went for a run and when I came back, Voila, Pete had everything organized and looking gorgeous on my tiny table.

The tray is like my life. I'm up for new things and I'm trying to balance my days with a variety of friends, activities, books...you get what I mean.

Writing is something I have tucked to the side, at least for the last few weeks. I have one more week left of school and then the summer is mine. This is the first summer in years that I don't have either college classes or backpacking trips.

I have forced myself to quit feeling guilty that I am not producing more work. It's lovely to sample other areas of life, but I do look forward to returning to the page.

Seriously...

I teach high school. I don't write about it often. I shouldn't care what people think, but seriously, I mean seriously, seriously, many writers think that being a high school teacher means that you aren't a serious writer. I even had a professor in MFA school give me a B+ and say (actually, he wrote it to me in an email), "I am sure you are a really good high school teacher." It was patronizing, condescending, and hurtful. I learned to conceal my profession. In my publication bios, I rarely mention being a high school teacher.

AND THAT IS SO RIDICULOUS. I'm a poet and a high school teacher. I can be talented at more than one thing.

The above picture is that of a really big candy bar that was placed on my desk in my classroom last Friday. Look at the tag. It says, "Have a puddle-wonderful day." Here are some of the other things that are written on the gorgeously wrapped chocolate bar:

The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The GREAT teacher inspires.
A teacher affects eternity; she can never tell where her influence stops.

A writer is one who gives voice to the voiceless.

They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Three reasons to have a writer for a teacher:
1. endless coffee
2. an excuse for a childish mind
3. pugs

Someday I may wish to teach college. Who knows? But I must admit, (and many writers who have visited and worked with my students would agree) teaching high school can be a rewarding, challenging, and beautiful experience. I am blessed each day to work with the students who fill the seats in room 201.

I teach them how to make poems and how to practice empathy through reading and writing. They leave me chocolate bars decorated with e.e.cummings references. I know life isn't all rainbows and puppy dogs, but for some Saran wrapped cliche reason, these kids make me a better person.

We have the best days so very often. Days we will never forget. So I teach them about enjambment and I talk about my pugs and they remind how tender words can be and how happy I am, on most days, to be alive.

Some days are rough and teaching is not always conducive to my own writing, but for the most part, I can't imagine a more puddle-wonderful way to spend my days. Thank you to all of my students. I won't keep you a secret anymore.

Mother's Day 2009

Changes...

The other day I snapped this picture and then I shouted across the parking lot to my neighbor Diane, "Hey look."

She looked for a moment and then smiled. The nun who lives one complex down drove by and Diane said, "Damn, a rainbow and then Sister Mary drives by us. Now that's a moment."

And it was.

No matter how cliche rainbows may seem, I can't imagine anyone not loving them.

Thoughts on Please

It has been nearly a month since I have touched this blog. Shame on me. I have been attempting to take the poem a day challenge, but I haven't been happy with 99% of my work. However, that's not the point of PAD. I was/am hoping to return to that place where poetry was less neurotic, that place where I put my laptop on an upside down laundry basket and typed away into the night.

Since my last entry, I have spent much quality time with Jericho Brown's book Please. It has been a long time since I have combed through a book this much. My clean, signed, gorgeous copy of Please is now a bit rough. Many pages are dog-earred, and there even exists a smudge of coffee here and there. This is of course a compliment to Jericho's work. I am in no way one of those people who believe in keeping a book in mint condition and the shape of a book (or my old Jeep Wrangler-for a nostalgia-drenched example) speaks to how much I cherish it.

Terrance Hayes' blurb of Please reads, I could never say all I love about this book...I agree with Hayes, and for the sake of not divulging everything, I will only list a few aspects of the book that have resonated in my mind for the past month as I have savored this book.

Jericho wastes no time or word in this book. From the very first poem, the reader is slammed into a world where seemingly opposites are separated only by diaphanous, thin lines the speaker must walk across; sometimes tip-toeing, sometimes waltzing, sometimes even stomping. The tongue lashes but loves. A young man with a father is oh-so-fatherless. A song is an affirmation and a form of torture, a celebration and a lament. This juxtapostioning continues throughout the book and leaves the reader a joyous wreck.

And the sequencing!!! Jericho definitely needs to teach a course on assembling a manuscript. Please is organized as three sections of poems: Repeat, Pause, and Power. There is also a forth section of notes titled Stop. To give you an idea of Jericho's style, check out the table of contents. Here are the titles of the poems in the first section: Track 1: Lush Life, Prayer of the Backhanded, Track 3: (Back Down) Memory Lane, Track 4: Reflections, Scarecrow,
Again, Autobiography, Detailing the Nape, Track 5: Summertime, Beneath Me, and Herman Finley is Dead.

For me, the common thread of all books that I find worthy of multiple reads is that the writer must create a world where I can be moved. I hope that's not too selfish, but I want my heart broken in new ways. I want to cringe and laugh, and hold my breath at times. Please is one of those books that smacks the reader while caressing him or her. Take this brief excerpt from the poem Pause, which is the first poem of the second section.

I should have known-
I who hate for people to comment
That I must be happy
Just because they hear me hum.
I want to ask
If they ever heard of slavery,
The work song-the best music
Is made of subtraction,
The singer seeks an exit from the scarred body
And opens his mouth
Trying to get out.

Do you have chills yet? It is not uncommon for most of the poems in Please to have that effect.

It is hard for me to digest that Please is Jericho's first book. It is just that impressive. Of course, one look at the teachers and friends thanked on his acknowledgements page and you will see that he has worked with a variety of fabulous writers.

Jericho Brown is certainly no amateur that landed a first book deal. Please could stand up to many writers third or fourth or fifth book. And then some.

Pleasure Delayer

Have you ever had a book that you were so psyched to read that you forced yourself to do a dozen other things in order to permit yourself the pleasure of reading it?
Well, all of my to-do list is crossed off and Jericho Brown, here I come.

I saw Jericho read with Terrance Hayes exactly two weeks ago at Cleveland State University. Having been a Terrance Hayes fan for years, the reading has been marked on my calender since Michael Dumanis told me about it many, many months ago.

Starstruck and thinking 99% about hearing Hayes read, I had no idea that Jericho Brown was going to deliver one of the best readings I have ever attended. You know, that sort of reading that makes you want to go home, lock your doors, and write for a month straight? I could list a bunch of adjectives describing the entire reading, but I don't think I could ever manage to do it justice.

The only word that comes to mind is duende.

Please, Jericho's debut book, has burned a hole in my bag. I have used this fire to motivate me to finish reading other books on my self-inflicted reading list. And now, I have finished a few novels that somehow escaped me in my education (Slaughterhouse-five, White Noise) as well as several poetry books that have been collecting dust on my shelf (not because they are bad, but because I buy more books than I can read).

Off to Jericho Brown reading heaven I go. I will post some highlights of the book as soon as time permits. Until then, I hope you have a new book to read that rocks your poetry world.