Poetic Times

        For nikki[i]

Elated, I drive up the highway

to class, smiling.

My students—who I don’t own,

so I don’t know why I use the possessive—

see that poetry is not just a puzzling problem to perceive

the answer,

but an experience, a transformation, a view—when

then I approach an Amish farmer, plowing

with six rugged tan horses, three in a row,

he with a hat and focused ahead,

me and my cell phone focused abroad,

with the golden, red leaves spanning the horizon,

and his dog, marching beside,

and me speeding along a one-way highway.

I get to where I’m going,

and a student who teaches me says,

“Stop and Listen, and you may be able to understand

how to free

yourself

as well.”

                                                                   Lucia Elden 17 October 2012

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[i] This poem is partly in response to nikki giovanni’s 1968 poem http://sbacari.tripod.com/poetry/forsaundra.htm  and also an online class discussion, including a quote from a student’s discussion forum post in response to a quote on freedom in “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin

"Hook" for a New Year's Day

Today is as good as any to write. :)

After a semester of stats and proposal writing, plus teaching like crazy (comp and 2 online literature classes, 50 papers for every assignment but amazing traditional college students and dual enrolled students), I am done with my course work for my doctoral program. So yesterday I wrote a poem, and it felt wonderful.

It was about a visit to our humanities-based research class by MSU professor and nonfiction writer, Marcia Aldrich. As a gift to her and the class. I started with this line: "She enters the room with laughter and a bag." Often, we try to get students to create a "hook" to get readers into their writing, but I realized that sometimes you need to find a "hook" to get yourself as a writer to be engaged. This line propelled me into writing the rest of it. I want to think about this more with my students. I ended it this way: "I am left with more questions in my notes than answers: a good sign of a good presenter, of a good teacher, of a good poet. I am left with more inspiration than theory. I am left with more."

This fall I also presented at the Teaching English at the Two-Year College midwest conference, and it went really well. It was on repurposing technology in the composition class. This coming year I will have a chance to present at a couple of other conferences, which is a growth experience for sure. http://www.tycamw.org/Columbus%202011%20Conference.htm

As I look back on the year and all the amazing experiences I had in the classroom and out, I am sure that my Study Trip to Vietnam was the most life changing. I hope to have reflected on it enough by now to write about it soon. Here is me at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi.