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

---

[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.

Springtime Inspirations after a Long Winter

I am certainly inspired by my grad classes, but today I had a chance to go to a National Writing Project "continuity event"--or our local branch of it at the Chippewa River Writing Project. It was inspiring to hear second grade teachers and middle school teachers talk about using Glogster to engage their boys and girls in writing; to hear all the teachers including teacher educators share their writing about the changeable Michigan weather (both atmospheric and political); and to hear how invigorated they all are about their teaching and their own writing projects.

I was also inspired by Central Michigan University's Imagining the Fantastic conference, where artists talked about their creative process. Diane Ackerman's new book One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing is also about the creative process--her writing process and the creativity that the brain has to try to heal itself after an injury. And how we heal each other.

Today near the end of another semester, I am inspired to shift into spring.

Linguistic Diversity

My mother has a strong Polish accent, so I am not bothered as much by accents as some people are. And I so respected the way my African American and Hispanic students in Texas were able to "code switch." I am learning so much from my MSU classmates about World English and also from reading a fabulous little anthology by Smitherman and Villanueva (2003) called Language Diversity in the Classroom: From Intention to Practice. Here is a quote from Kim Brian Lovejoy:

As more teachers develop their pedagogies to accommodate diverse students and their linguistic differences, we will begin to see the kind of programmatic changes in writing programs that can have an impact on large numbers of students and create an environment for teachers to share best practices and to talk, reflectively and productively, about issues of linguistic diversity in the classroom (p. 96).

In honor of this learning in school and in "informal learning" at a wedding I attended over the weekend where I learned about Indian food and dance and marriage, I submit this photo.

The End of a Season

Not much of a video, but a Chippewa River Writing Project friend asked me how my garden was and so I had hoped to take a picture of it and accidentally took a video of it! Last night we had a frost, so my zinnias are gone; today was the Detroit Tigers last game (thankfully they won and so they finished 500); and I had my first fire in the fireplace. The semester has settled into its routine.

I guess this is a once a season blog. I mostly blog in my mind. Is there such a thing? I think of blogging ideas on walks, while I read, when in my classes as a student or as a teacher. I had hoped to be a resource for others, and I need to pick it up!

Now and Then

Today the BP oil "spill" has been capped. It was interesting to listen to NPR discussions about what the "spill" should be called and how BP has co-opted the Internet to influence the "informational" impact. And how the Internet is influencing our language.

Which is one reason why we have to keep reading books, I suppose--to counter this influence. But that sounds like a dumb reason to read books. In past years, I have read Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife on the big sea-like beaches of Lake Michigan, but this year I wanted to read The Old Man and the Sea to think about the fishermen and women in the Gulf. It was fun to pick it up at my local bookstore and read about Santiago's struggle with the giant fish. There are so many who have lost their livelihood due to this catastrophe. Hopefully, this "glocal" issue will continue to be studied. Students have told me that they enjoyed this book; I wonder if they will experience it differently from here on out.

Time to Think about Hopes and Dreams

It is officially summer time! I've had a chance to read two books for fun. One is set in northern Michigan in the late 1950's about two teenagers and the complexities of their lives of which their parents have no clue: Season of Water and Ice by Donald Lystra. The second is Anna Quindlen's Every Last One, which is an amazing story about a mother who deals with unbelievable grief.

Since it has been raining in the past couple of days, I have finally checked in on old acquaintances on email and Face book. One friend from college asked me about "my kids, work, faith, hope and dreams..." Another from childhood had contacted me and asked me about my family. She asked, "Are you the girl from Southgate?" It was strange to reflect on and write back in short form about life. Summer is the time for reflections through reading and writing...and walking on the beach.