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.

Thoughts on the Writing Life

Sometimes I feel really alone about my need and love for poetry. I have friends who are writers. And I teach so much good stuff. But still, you know what I mean? If I didn't have access to the computer on a daily basis I would barely get my daily poetry fix. I know I constantly pull this "I'm an only child"ranting and looking back over my recent blogs, it wouldn't take a psychologist to analyze my aesthetic loneliness. Is this just post-MFA? I hate to think I have to be in a workshop to feel as if I am a writer.

Much of the reason I pursued an MFA was to be part of a support system of writers. I loved every single assignment and class. I'm not saying I didn't learn anything, but being around writers who were consistently producing work and talking about it...well it was just what I needed and need.

On the back cover of APR's Jan/Feb issue is an excerpt from a speech Stanley Kunitz gave in 1994. I have read it over and over and will post some of the excerpt.

Poetry, I have insisted, is ultimately mythology, the telling of the stories of the soul. This would seem to be an introverted, even solipsistic, enterprise, if it were not that these stories recount the soul's passage, through the valley of this life-that is to say, its adventure in time, in history.

If we want to know what it felt like to be alive at any given moment in the long odyssey of the race, it is to poetry we must turn. The moment is dear to us, precisely because it is so fugitive, and it is somewhat of a paradox that poets should spend a lifetime hunting for the magic that will make the moment stay. Art is that chalice into which we pour the wine of transcendence. What is imagination but a reflection of our yearning to belong to eternity as well as to time?

Poets are always ready to talk about the difficulty of their art. I want to say something about its rewards and joys. The poem comes in form of a blessing-"like rapture breaking on the mind," as I tried to phrase in my youth. Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life.

Writing about Ruins

I have been writing about Ireland. This is something I've mostly avoided for years. It's time, I think. I feel smothered by faces and ruins and ruins of faces. I hope that of the 30 poems I write this November, at least a few can put these ghosts to rest.

Pug Pageant Mother????

Once in a while a poem comes out fast but that is usually if something hits me and I just grab a notebook or napkin and scribble it down. Mostly, I mull and mull over words and look at Microsoft Word for hours. Being a word-muller has one benefit. As you can see from the above picture, Telemachus likes to sit in my lap and sleep on my arm as I attempt to write poems. This makes typing especially difficult, but when a phrase only arrives once a day, it's not so bad.

To the right of the picture you can see the new puppy, Edith, sleeping in her new tiny pink corduroy bed. She is just so cute that I can barely stand it.

Okay, so don't judge me just yet. I have not purchased one single outfit for Edith. My best friend Kelly just happens to own a Pomeranian named Lola and little Lola likes to eat and can't quite fit into some of her clothes. Kelly passed some outfits down to Edith.


I of course have not taken her anywhere in these outfits because it is too hot, but my apartment is quite air conditioned so I must admit, there has been one small fashion show.

Am I a pug pageant mother? That's a horrible thought. If I told you that pugs love clothes, would you believe me? I swear!