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.

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.

Dog Days

These are definitely the dog days, but in a literal, good sense of the word. I am lucky that I work in a field that gives me the summers off because these past weeks have been important to Edith's training. She is 11 weeks old and she can sit, lie, and give me five. She adores and tortures Telemachus. All in all, it's a nice little family.

I have had a lot of time to read and write as well. This past week I read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Dog Years by Mark Doty, Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields by Ashley Capps, and Huck Finn. I loved every single book. Though Huck Finn and Into the Wild did make me get the traveling itch again.

For those of you who love poetry, I highly recommend Capps' book Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields. I am on my third read and have found it to be a stunning debut book. Here's a short poem:

April

Everywhere, the ghost
wigs of dandelions,
everywhere the green
toothache of early spring.
The cops-in-training
are beating their horses,
and they wave at me
from the fields. All the girls
show their shoulders now.
The future promises more
of the same. It is hard
to love people enough.

For those of you who love poetry and/or dogs, Doty's Dog Years is a lovely memoir about the lives of his two lovely dogs, Arden and Beau. My favorite line in the book is..."Thus, in the face of all dangers, in what may seem a godless region, we move forward through the agencies of love and art."

I am not sure what my reading agenda is this week. I have so many books to read. I'm looking forward to spending some time with Bern Mulvey's book, The Fat Sheep Everyone Wants. Other than that, I have not made up my mind. Happy reading, everyone.