Poem - Week 11

When I was fifteen, she began 

a withering smile curling across her face,

the world started and stopped with a look.

A look at the two hills stationed

in a land where flypaper horses stung,

propelling steers to trample
through an asphalt river.

It's in that land that the plastic air

continues, as ever, to slither through the irises

and saran wrap the lungs in dust.

While ravens grapple on hay barrels 

in a pasture beyond the main house,

the stale smell of manure

on a frayed leather bridle

traces its incense to an annual week

of expected resignation.

When I was fifteen, she laughed idylically,

I wanted to careen

through the bottled tourmaline

and, like the phone line, snap.

I could not be the frozen image

of perfection they wanted to think I was going to be.

I was not her.
I was not you.

Or them.
With their genteel faces painted,

organized by height and expense.

I cried before exposing them,

those artificial convicts of my inheritance,

to the excuses of a maid-in-waiting.

Refusing to share their room,

I chose the bed,

a twin without its other half,

in the corner of a home office.

Better to stare blankly 

at the dotted piercings of a faded map

than to be reported a phony

by 358 pairs of porcelain marbles

from the courts of Madame Alexander, Franklin Mint,

and Ashton Drake.

*This is the very first draft of this poem. I'll take any and all the help I can get with it. I'm not sure where I'm going with it. ~ Laura 

Week 10 - Poem

This is from a contraction exercise I did. I'm not sure how I feel about it. This is the third draft of this poem. It needs something. I'm just not sure what. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks. ~ Laura

Moroccan Fantasy

The caravan of shoeless travelers waiting

for flights are no longer our concern.

We drift away on Royal Air Maroc

leaving our families to hire a doppelganger or two.

Dreaming of gazelle’s horns and green mint tea,   

dancing to the beat of a street vendor’s drums,

choosing our accents carefully, 

whirling with the dervishes and

spinning scribbled warnings

until all the creases of our origami lives come undone.

We split the eye of an oasis into peripheral blue with

a wave of your eyebrows and my elephant wink.

The Straits of Gibraltar appear on the horizon of a finger tip.

“Huckleberry,” I say, “we’re after the same rainbow’s end!”

Improv - Week 9

I am the first
by Paul Celan
Contemporary World Poetry

I am the first to drink of the blue that still looks for its eye.
I drink from your footprint and see:
you roll through my fingers, pearl, and you grow!
You grow, as do all the forgotten.
You roll: the black hailstone of sadness
is caught by a kerchief turned white with waving goodbye.

___________________________________________________

Mercury

I am the last to forge of the gold that canvases the feet.
I skip past the Fatum and fly:
Me running away, helmet and staff invisable.
Me running away, until its all a forgotten cloud blur.
I run: the air of Aeolus
carrying me across the velvet cover of Poesidon waving goodbye.

Junkyard Quotes 4 - Week 9

"I suppose you write poetry better on an empty stomach." ~ my mother

Junkyard Quotes 3 - Week 9

"Times aren't getting hard, words are getting soft." ~ my friend, Steve

Pedagogy - Week 9

I am very apathetic this year. I think most teachers are also. With budget cuts, furlough days, and more students in each class, it's hard not to be. Every teacher I have talked to has said something to the effect of, "If they would just let me teach.." Teaching is becoming a problem in schools. Actual teaching time is becoming regimented and isolated. At my school, the general impression of administration is that they want everyone on the same page, teaching and testing over the exact same material, fitting every child into a nice neat little box. The problem is that most children do not fit into this idealized box. It's becoming a very frustrating environment to work in, and I can't help but think, if the teachers are feeling this way then how are the students feeling? The general mood seems to be trickling down slowly. Administration is frustrated so the teachers are frustrated and then the students, sensing the frustration, react similarly. All I want to do is teach. I want to be able to decide to teach poetry before short stories and novels without getting emails and being asked to substantiate my reasoning. I am a Highly Qualified English teacher with a B.A. in English and a minor in Professional Writing. I've passed every test the state asked me to take. I have a Master's certification in Special Education. Why are my decisions being questioned? Why am I being scrutinized? Why can't I just be left alone to teach my students? I am teaching the curriculum. I just changed the order around. I hate having to conform. I hate being forced into a box, and I really hate that I am being asked to confine my student's education to a little box as well.

Junkyard Quotes 2 - Week 9

From a conversation at a friend's house: "You've gotta have 4-tap gonads kid, if you're going to wrestle with your cousin like that."

Free Write - Week 9

This is just a draft based on my notes from the conversation in class. I'll revise again after I get everyone's "official" commentary from Davidson:


The first night I considered love,
you dropped me
on a ring of campfire stones
your jester's hat tripping
across the 2 A.M. October.
I might have known then
but I was too busy listening
to the sound of laughter - ours -
breaking the night.
Nimblewill Creek defused
the alcohol as easily as we shivered
away from boots, jackets, and apologies.
On an air mattress,
the makeshift bed of your truck,
we traced the bony shadows of trees.
Reticence stopped all conversation,
eventual and blurred.
We pressed our eyes shut
warmed by flannel cocoons
and woke, I fear, to the smell
of trout, bulging filmstips of rainbow
frying away the afternoon.

Junkyard Quotes 1 - Week 9

Random signs I saw on the way home from class:

"My  granddaughter said ghost are just people who were never real." ~ driving through Carrolton

"Caution: Loaded with political promises." ~ on the back of a work truck

"Encouraging 'people' to experience and enjoy life in Christ." ~ sign in front of a church in Hiram/Dallas area.

Sign Inventory - Week 8

Sign Inventory
“The Feast of Stephen”
Anthony Hecht
Contemporary American Poetry

1. Use of foreign terminology
1. esprit de corps refers to the morale of a group, the belief in a goal/institution
2. mens sana refers to a healthy mind
3. pliés invokes the image of ballerinas, an odd contrast to the military terminology
4. Sturm-Abteilungs Kommandant is an allusion to a group closely associated with Hitler’s rise to power. The first commander was Ernst Rohm, who Hitler grew to dislike and wanted out of the picture. Sturmabteilungs is a German term for “storm troopers.”
2. The use of a pun in the line “mens sana in men’s sauna.”
3. The line “private and corporal glee” has varying degrees of interpretation:
1. private
1. From the Latin “privatus” meaning “to take away”
2.  In the military the term indicates someone of low rank.
3.  Also indicates a secret, something kept away from others
4.  A reference to the privates or genital area.
2.  corporal
1. Stems from Italian “capo corporale” meaning “head of a body”
2.  In the military the term indicates a leadership role and is ranked higher than a private.
3.  Represents the physical or material world
4.  Can also refer to a special cloth such as a communion cloth.
4. Combines clichés. For example, “in the flush / of health and toilets.” The word flush is used as an adjective and a verb simultaneously.  
5. “pliés and genuflections” – One is an artistic bend to the knee; the other is a bend in the knee as if worshipping or in reverence of something.
6.  Animal imagery
1.  “coltish” invokes the picture of a young horse: youthful, inexperienced, gangly, willingness to try anything, awkward.
2.  “salmon-leap” creates the image of fish responding to their biological urge to spawn. After salmon complete the journey and spawn, they die providing food and nutrients for the unborn generations they created.
7. Who is “Saint Stephen” in the poem? He could be the unknown person referenced in the lines “bloodied hair” and “unintelligible prayer.” They appear to indicate that someone has been sacrificed by a group of boys; however, looking at the text from a historical perspective “Saint Stephen” could also be the “Sturm-Abteilungs Kommandant” Hitler wanted to be rid of. Is it the person named "Saul"?
8. Images of water – moist, shower stalls, sweat, wet towels, flush, toilets, fleet, salmon-leap, leaping fountain, glistening, rippled, wet and salty garments, bodies brilliantly oiled.

Calisthenics - Week 8

I have to say, I wasn't that impressed with Billy Collins. He had some funny poems and some unique language. He is a good presenter and his voice had a nice tenor but, overall, my brain did not find what it was looking for. I like a challenge; and since there was no challenge to be had, my A.D.D kicked in. I spent most of my time trying to figure out the audience. Their reactions were much more interesting than some of Collins' poems.

When my attention was drawn back to Collins, I found myself thinking of other popular poets I've never really cared for. To name a few: Shel Silverstein and (dare I say it) Dr. Seuss. Yes, you read that correctly. I did just say Dr. Seuss. As a child, I was exposed to these poets and was never really interested in their simplistic outlook. That being said, as an adult, I have learned that even poets we don't like can teach unexpected and unintended lessons.

Silverstein and Seuss both taught me lessons much later in life, and now I find that Billy Collins has a lesson for me as well. That is: It is important, as a teacher, to expose students to a variety of poems whether you like them or not. Exposure allows students to discover literature they both like and dislike. It is our job to present literature to the students and supply them with the tools that allow them to come to their own conclusions. Just because we don't like a particular piece of literature does not mean it is invaluable. Often, you learn more from what you don't like than what you do like.


P.S. And in tribute to Mr. Collins, my Improv for this week is about dogs. 

Improv - Week 8

"A Four-Light Window"
Agnes Nemes Nagy
from Contemporary World Poetry

I.


the first is a park.
a garden path between bare boughs
path at one side, mass of a yew tree
flecked with winter fruit
the glass beads of art nouveau
and more
more - to what end?

the mark of the square picture
in the garden path, bird's neck path
as it turns, impossible in words
only in the hand's gesture,
and cranes its unwritable bird's head
into dull bushes.

II.
the second is clouded.

III.
the third is of concrete.
i mean a garage roof
(the window sill cuts in two, and below
the vintage-animals invisible
bespoke tarpaulin
retracting light
from varnish & polish & chrome
and the unheard four strokes
resound emptily in their cylinders
with the viscous chill of winter garages)

while outside the burning winter sunlight
and the mix of climates
and the mix of woodpecker overalls
as it cuts over the snow field
and turns the horizon
like a steering wheel,
noon spin through bright meridian.

IV.
the fourth is the sky,
drum-tight, without a line.
rare silence of earth's atmosphere
as it does not write, thick slate
its inextinguishable vapourings.
a few strokes only, broken signals,
broached interpretations,
remnant of prefix, an auspice.

_____________________________________________
Shepherds

I.
the first was named "Tea Lady."
her Arabic roots transplanted
to cold Mid-Western backyards.
wintering beside fireplaces,
children grew playing rag-tag
and sleeping against her soft side.

II.
the second, "Sugar Lady," died six hours later. parvo.

III.
the third, "Monster Man,"
was jovial and tired of being cramped
in pet store cages. freedom pulled
him this way and that, tearing him away
from children's delicate hands.
choking on the collar of life,
ignoring commands
he ran from his superiors
into the arms of river-front land.
a place to happily roam and explore.
with a veternarians's dad, or so they said.
at least it wasn't the farm.

IV.
the fourth is not like the others.
still a herder, but, masked by black
and white plumage. a ninny at heart
with dagger teeth bared to the outside
world only from within
the saftey of her castle.
the "Sweet Lady" who plays catch
with herself, and leaps over rivets
with grown-up children
who stop by only once-in-a-while.

Free Write - Week 8

The causal rain
and my Earl Gray are cold.
I find them easy to swallow.
The cigarette-bricked columns,
newly formed patrons of a memory
I never lost, split passing groups of people.
I resent their intrusion
and consider changing
my wrought-iron position.
Yet, I am held fast by the lingering ashes,
one of my grandma’s many smells.
It is almost her birthday.
I will celebrate later in the week
by opening a bottle of perfume
I can’t remember if she wore or not.
Strange how I miss her, evenly,
like a level.

Junkyard Quotes 4 - Week 8

A few of Oscar Wilde's thoughts on poetry and writing:

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic."

"The work that seems to us the most natural and simple product of its time is probably the result of the most deliberate and self-conscious effort."

"A poet can survive everything but a misprint."

"Even prophets correct their proofs."

"No age borrows the slang of its predecessor."

"Everyone should keep someone else's diary."




from The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde by Ralph Keys

Response to Chris's Pedgaogy Entry - Week 8

Pedagogy Forum, Week 8

Studying a novel this week, I was finding it hard to get poetry involved in my lesson plans until today. We started with a simple task of writing a defining poem in the voice of a character in the book. This worked on a few levels, because it required the students to look at the point of view of that character and see what they might think about different subjects. Today we started very basic, but we are going to work on these poems to make them stronger after they get the first idea down on paper. This also works as a review, because they have to take things from the novel to justify their choices in the poem. I know it is not exactly what we have been working on, but it is a another chance for students to be creative.

______________________________________________________

I definitely think Chris is on the right track with this assignment. Using the novel as a jumping off point is beneficial because it offers those students, who otherwise would not know what to write about, a safety net for their poetry. By giving them a specific assignment related to a subject and setting they are already familiar with, students functioning on every level are relieved from some of the anxieties that often accompany a written assignment. Even the best writer in the class may struggle without being given any guidelines. Chris's in-class assignment harkens back to Hugo's Triggering Town, and is a fantastic way to incorporate a review. I may have to steal the idea later in the semester when I begin the novel study with my classes.

Junkyard Quotes 3 - Week 8

“The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.” ~ Italo Calvino

Junkyard Quotes 2 - Week 8

"I’m not superstitious, just a little stitious." ~ Michael, The Office

Junkyard Quotes 1 - Week 8

"Can I be like a ballistic and go now?" ~ Bones

Pedagogy - Week 8

In order to get my kids to focus on sensory details in poetry, I came up with a fun activity for them. I went to Google images, found a picture, and had my students create a visual inventory of the picture you see to the right. The first go-round I had them focus on basic description. Moving through the list we generated, I then asked for more specificity. After completing the visual inventory, they wrote a class poem. My 4th/5th block came up with the following:

The hot-sauce racer slices
down to the finish line
on its peperoni wheels.
The poor Umpalumpa boy,
dressed in his button-popping tan, 
chokes on his watermelon Pixie-Stix
and crashes onto the railed track
landing in loneliness.

This is the exact poem they came up with. They are my lunch class so excuse the food imagery. However, the images they came up with are definitely interesting. The only thing I did with the poem was determine the spacing; they did everything else. They really enjoyed the activity and wanted me to pull another picture for tomorrow. I found this one:

Calisthenics - Week 7

*Forgot to post this. I think that is because I don't really like the poem and it isn't finished. I need to keep working on it.



I am too tall for the overhang.
My head continuously butts against
the fringed awning and rams into the door frames.
I carry - daily - fragiles discs on a plate
to hungry travelers with the grace of Bacchus
on a pre-festival binge.
Smiling and bowing,
speaking in tongues I wish I had never heard.
If I had never heard them, I could be dead
and that would be a blessing.
I rather curse with Charon
or barter with Hades under Tantalis's tree
than ask:
"How many?"
"Cafe or tea?"
"Inside or patio?"
"Dessert?"
I want to tear them apart, these arachnids
masking as humans
Stomp them out with fire
and let my vultures carry away their flesh
while my dogs gnaw on their bones.
Humilation of the worst kind
comes from betting against Hera.

Improv - Week 7

Along Galeana Street by Octavio Paz

translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bishop

Contemporary World Poetry

Hammers pound there above
pulverized voices
From the top of the afternoon
the builders come straight down

We're between blue and good evening
here begin vacant lots
A pale puddle suddenly blazes
the shade of the hummingbird ignites it

Reaching the first houses
the summer oxidizes
Someone has closed the door......someone
speaks with his shadow

It darkens......There's no one in the street now
not even this dog
scared to walk through it alone
One's afraid to close one's eyes

 _________________________________

“Everyone in Venice is acting,” Count Cirolamo Marcello told me. “Everyone plays a role, and the role changes. The key to understanding Venitians is rhythm.” ~ The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt

Bridges

Water sighs with chipping stone

     sinking voices

from the crawl of the mainland.

     Actors busy the canals.

They’re between this world and reality

        progressing with the tidal rhythm.

Transitions must be crossed slowly

        or not at all.

Painting a tromp l’oeil.

            Life and art bound to a

reality that is once removed.

                       Sunlight on a canal reflects

from a ceiling to a vase then scatters across a glass bowl.

         Perception – twice removed –

with mirrored rhythm.

      Reality in Venice lasts as long as the tides.

The actors breathe deeply. Walking

       into Campo Manin

an air of finality spreads -

      the opposite of telling the truth.

Junkyard Quote 4 - Week 7

"I ain't agonna do that right now." ~ student in hallway

Junkyard Quote 3 - Week 7

When going over the vocabulary word astrology, a girl in class yelled: "I'm an aquarium!"

Pedagogy Piece - Week 7

I was feeling a little rebellious last week and decided to change the way I am teaching literature. Instead of waiting to teach poetry until later on in the semester (for block classes) and year (for traditional classes), I chose to introduce them to it now. It fit perfectly with what I wanted to do, and I was inspired by Davidson and Ellison's comments that poetry is easier to work with because it is smaller. I should mention I am only doing this experiment with my small group classes. My co-teacher has things pretty much planned and I don't want to rock the boat too much.

My first period, I have a class of five boys. Getting them to like poetry was going to be a struggle. I knew this as soon as I said the word "poetry." I might as well have said "candy and flowers and love, oh my!" I began the lesson with what they thought poetry was supposed to be about. This is the list they came up with:

falling in love
nature stuff (butterflies, flowers, trees, etc)
breaking up
being sad

After this interesting inventory, I presented them with "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home." We read it through twice before I offered any explanation. One of the guys looked at me and said, "Ms. Lindsay, this isn't a poem." When I asked why it wasn't, he said it was because it had nothing to do with what we'd listed on the board, and it didn't rhyme. From the back, another kid argued with him. He said it did rhyme in parts. So our discussion went from there. We talked about what they recognized (rhyme, alliteration, etc.) and then moved into a sign inventory. I got them actively involved by using the SmartBoard and had them mark the language they thought was the most interesting. The entire class period went really well, and my boys came up with something our class did not.

"In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger."

These lines sparked some debate. Right off the bat, all five boys thought the lines referred to a baby. They did not guess any mechanical object found in a home, even when I explained what an "apparatus" was. When I prodded for reasons why they thought the lines referred to a baby, they listed the following:

1. Babies might seem like an apparatus to a Martian. Especially if it has never seen one before because "babies are weird, man!"

2. Adults pick babies up and hold them when they cry. They kiss them a lot too.

3. In the last part of the poem, the Martian is talking about kids and adults. It is seeing how humans grow up, and we are babies first.


It was such a fantastic discussion. And for a group of 10th grade boys to come up with something like that was amazing. It is not that I didn't think my students could understand the poem, I just was not expecting the answers they gave me. It was probably one of the best classes I have had this year. I offer to every teacher: Never underestimate your students. Especially those who have disabilities.

Response to Darin's Pedagogy - Week 7

from Darin's Poetry Blog: Pedagogy Entry - Week 7

"I'm not sure what the solution to the problem is or even if there is one, but I have believed for a while now that education en-masse has the effect of de-sensitizing the student to the information. From the various subjects that I have taken, it seems that smaller forums and one-on-one time discussing the finer points of a subject are the best way to encourage critical or creative thought."
____________________________________________________

As Darin's post was a lengthy one, I am choosing to respond to a particular piece that stuck out while I was reading. Darin brings up a good point here. Smaller classes and one-on-one are significant helps in the classroom. Being a special education teacher, I have been in both the small group and general (inclusion/co-taught) education settings. I can honestly say that enjoy my small group classes more. I am limited to twelve students tops, and even less if I have an Autistic or EBD kid in the mix. This setting allows me to interact with each student on a daily basis. I have more time to student-conference. I can focus on their individual needs, goals, and objectives. I can tier my daily assignments and activities to accommodate each learning style in my classroom. They might be a struggle in terms of depth of knowledge or curriculum pacing but the level of interaction is greater. Ultimately, I feel I am a better teacher to my small group students than when I am in a co-taught/inclusion class.

Currently, I teach with a wonderful general education teacher. We work very well together and the kids seem to enjoy our class. We have a great group of kids. Even the annoying ones aren't that bad. The problem stems from the fact that there are thirty-five 10th graders in a classroom with two teachers. Even with a block class (110 minutes) Anna and I cannot get to all the students. For example, we were working on memoir writing pieces this week. We went over the assignment, showed them some examples, and gave them time to work on their own writing. Anna started at one end of the classroom; I began at the other. As the desks have to be arranged in rows because space is limited, this meant we were each taking approximately three and a half rows a piece. We had spent about forty minutes on instruction, leaving us with over an hour for the kids to brainstorm and begin drafting their work. By the time the bell rang, Anna and I had each made it through only half of our students. The kids in the middle did not get any conference time with us and were forced to wait until the next day. This happens consistently, though we make a concerted effort to work with every kid every day. I hate having to tell a kid, "I'll get to you tomorrow." They shouldn't have to wait. They should be able to receive even five minutes of my time each class. I am only with my co-teacher one class a day; I teach small group the rest of the day. I cannot imagine how long it takes her to reach every student in her general education classes with no other teacher.

This is part of the reason I work in special education. I enjoy working with students with disabilities but I also like the fact that I can reach each student in my class on a daily basis. It's very difficult in a small group class of five students for someone to slip through the cracks. My sympathy goes out to the general education teachers. I.D.E.I.A and No Child Left Behind would have to be changed before my small group numbers changed.

Free Write - Week 7

Gabriel

 

Handsomely devilish,

he dimples.

Lights up when she’s around.

Stares with special attention

at the young American woman.

Shared innocuous smiles.

Droplets of snow in her honey hair.

Roving wind in his cerulean eyes.

His Rauchbier voice tempts

until...
She catches a flash of momentary gold.

Right ring finger.

Damn these European men.

She has to ask.

Through his darkening grin,

she points to the halo wrapped around his promise:

“In my country that means something.”

Shouldering his eyebrows,

he moves the ring

right,

left,

then right again,

settles it on his left to rest.

Sincerity drips with ambered perfection:

“Itz jest a ring”