"Einstein's Bathrobe" by Moss (p. 153 in The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry)
"I wove myself of many delicious strands
Of violent islands and sugar balls of thread
so faintly green and small white check between
Balanced in the field's wide lawn, a plaid
Gathering in loose folds shaped around him"
"Sampson's Loin Cloth"
I wove myself of putrid animal strands
of greasy bones and flyaway tufts in stumps
so biblical and sexual. A small token of humor
balancing the flow of hair, and Delilah's intent
to trim and control gathering in the loose folds
and glistening shears around him.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Week 6, Free Entry
Oscar the Grouch Recycles
I don't wear pants, sing or count.
The galvanized plastic taps the
indiscretions of Elmo and the humans.
Bannana peels, moldy bird seed and
dry Count Chocular bars crowd around me.
Soon, I'll be on Hoarders: Buried Alive.
Don't be like me-the parents say.
The Baker Street dump-far from this place
crushes lessons and crayons.
The only trash here is me.
I don't wear pants, sing or count.
The galvanized plastic taps the
indiscretions of Elmo and the humans.
Bannana peels, moldy bird seed and
dry Count Chocular bars crowd around me.
Soon, I'll be on Hoarders: Buried Alive.
Don't be like me-the parents say.
The Baker Street dump-far from this place
crushes lessons and crayons.
The only trash here is me.
Week 6, Junkyard Quotes
1.
"Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease."Keats--I was thinking today how well Keats can focus on one
thing for so
many lines and not be boring or repetitive.
2. "She was danger on two legs."-Anthony Bourdain on Ava Gardner
3. "satisfying flavors of blackberry and currant" -Wine Bottle
4. "Yeah, I stay there." -My students don't live anywhere..
they just stay. At first,
the transient attitude worried me, but now,
I think that's a great way to say where
you live.
Week 6, Calisthenics
I am kinda sad that my computer does not have a floppy disk drive because I wanted to pull up some of my poetry I wrote one summer at camp while reading a lot of Sylvia Plath and wearing my Smashing Pumpkin's t-shit. This will just have to do....
Love Song for a Loser in A Smashing Pumpkin's T-shirt-Draft 1
The lamenting moon shames me
knowing what I did..
asking..why did you? how could you?
The shame cuts through the broken glass
of mirrors, lockers, and this letter.
My soul cries out to the blistering moon..
but no reply.
My voice sinks deeper into the cavern that is his heart.
Wishing, waiting for more..but only getting less.
Wash me, clean me, make me whole again..
whole so I can be torn apart and wasted
like trash or chalkboard dust. Will he love me?
Can he love me? Silence.
Draft 2
The Cork Maker
The lamenting cork maker rolls the cask of impostors.
The lime filled crust guts the smell of mold.
Real of Plastic?
The facade of broken glass, floral notes, and this
takes away the stains.
The blistering of pulpy wood demands attention and
My voice sinks deeper into San Leolino .
Wasted like chalkboard dust,
labor and towel girls envelops the rotting flesh,
sealed with me.
Love Song for a Loser in A Smashing Pumpkin's T-shirt-Draft 1
The lamenting moon shames me
knowing what I did..
asking..why did you? how could you?
The shame cuts through the broken glass
of mirrors, lockers, and this letter.
My soul cries out to the blistering moon..
but no reply.
My voice sinks deeper into the cavern that is his heart.
Wishing, waiting for more..but only getting less.
Wash me, clean me, make me whole again..
whole so I can be torn apart and wasted
like trash or chalkboard dust. Will he love me?
Can he love me? Silence.
Draft 2
The Cork Maker
The lamenting cork maker rolls the cask of impostors.
The lime filled crust guts the smell of mold.
Real of Plastic?
The facade of broken glass, floral notes, and this
takes away the stains.
The blistering of pulpy wood demands attention and
My voice sinks deeper into San Leolino .
Wasted like chalkboard dust,
labor and towel girls envelops the rotting flesh,
sealed with me.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Week 6, Response to Classmate's Journal
You're totally right about the five paragraph essay not providing a worthwhile framework for our students' writing skills. However, I believe that evaluators for statewide writing tests are specifically trained to target these kinds of formulaic essays and fail them! There is a move to grade these essays on their ability to express sound ideas with good reasoning that are organized efficiently and are interesting due to word choice, sentence fluency, voice, and conventions. Transitions are also highly important so as to increase the flow of the work.
I always tell my students that four paragraphs are just as good as five, so long as they are well-developed, reasoned, and interesting. As teachers we need to continue creating better thinkers as we teach writing, and quality writing will inevitably follow. As you say, "the signs are what is important."
I'm so glad that both of you brought this up because it is still a battle zone at my school regarding this idea. If you look over the past decade, the standardized tests almost required a formulaic, 5 paragraph essay that followed the "I'm going to tell you about..Now, I told you about" method. However, if you look at the new rubric for the GHSWT, students will fail if they write in the traditional, formulaic method. The rubric uses language like "repetitive". So, what do educators do? We create a new formula for students to follow that we know will get them the passing grade. I know this seems terrible and restrictive, but so many students do not know how to write for purpose.
Our conversations about writing in our department always lead to the same issue, Purpose. If we could teach students that different writing calls for a different purpose, then they could create their own formula for the writing test. For example, I'll have my students create a brochure persuading fellow students of the best food in the cafeteria. Then, I'll say, now you are persuading a foreign exchange student, a nutritionist, etc. This shows them that depending on who you are writing to, you change everything. For me, teaching purpose of writing would clear up all of these arguments based on "formulaic writing".
I always tell my students that four paragraphs are just as good as five, so long as they are well-developed, reasoned, and interesting. As teachers we need to continue creating better thinkers as we teach writing, and quality writing will inevitably follow. As you say, "the signs are what is important."
I'm so glad that both of you brought this up because it is still a battle zone at my school regarding this idea. If you look over the past decade, the standardized tests almost required a formulaic, 5 paragraph essay that followed the "I'm going to tell you about..Now, I told you about" method. However, if you look at the new rubric for the GHSWT, students will fail if they write in the traditional, formulaic method. The rubric uses language like "repetitive". So, what do educators do? We create a new formula for students to follow that we know will get them the passing grade. I know this seems terrible and restrictive, but so many students do not know how to write for purpose.
Our conversations about writing in our department always lead to the same issue, Purpose. If we could teach students that different writing calls for a different purpose, then they could create their own formula for the writing test. For example, I'll have my students create a brochure persuading fellow students of the best food in the cafeteria. Then, I'll say, now you are persuading a foreign exchange student, a nutritionist, etc. This shows them that depending on who you are writing to, you change everything. For me, teaching purpose of writing would clear up all of these arguments based on "formulaic writing".
Week 6, Sign Inventory
Page 366-367 in The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry
"Axe Handles" by Gary Snyder
In the spirit of "Thing Poems", I wanted to look at this one by Gary Snyder.
1. The mention of Ezra Pound instantly places this poem in literary history.
2. The tendency to mythologize past culture is strong here in this poem similar to Semaus Heaney's poem, "Digging".
3. The object is missing in the beginning of the poem. The speaker must go get the axe handles.
4. The idea of time moves from present "One afternoon last week in April" to "fourth century AD".
5. The speaker also moves place in this poem, from the stump to the shop, back to the stump. This enriches the reading of time movement because the speaker doesn't really go anywhere.
6. 7 lines begin with "and". This is the most consistent line beginning in the poem.
7. The use of "I" as the object: "I am an axe". The son becomes the object as well: "my son a handle". This metaphor confuses the simplicity of the object.
8. The speaker uses the axe to create it's handle. This poem makes a comment on the nature of creation.
9. The speaker references "Essay on Literature". Perhaps in the same way that "Digging" discusses the process of writing, this focuses on a different aspect, criticism.
10. Throwing hatchet heads with your son seems like a violent, manly, purposeless activity that leads to a cultural revelation. Why this activity specifically?
"Axe Handles" by Gary Snyder
In the spirit of "Thing Poems", I wanted to look at this one by Gary Snyder.
1. The mention of Ezra Pound instantly places this poem in literary history.
2. The tendency to mythologize past culture is strong here in this poem similar to Semaus Heaney's poem, "Digging".
3. The object is missing in the beginning of the poem. The speaker must go get the axe handles.
4. The idea of time moves from present "One afternoon last week in April" to "fourth century AD".
5. The speaker also moves place in this poem, from the stump to the shop, back to the stump. This enriches the reading of time movement because the speaker doesn't really go anywhere.
6. 7 lines begin with "and". This is the most consistent line beginning in the poem.
7. The use of "I" as the object: "I am an axe". The son becomes the object as well: "my son a handle". This metaphor confuses the simplicity of the object.
8. The speaker uses the axe to create it's handle. This poem makes a comment on the nature of creation.
9. The speaker references "Essay on Literature". Perhaps in the same way that "Digging" discusses the process of writing, this focuses on a different aspect, criticism.
10. Throwing hatchet heads with your son seems like a violent, manly, purposeless activity that leads to a cultural revelation. Why this activity specifically?
Week 6, Pedagogy Forum
I really like Amy Ellison's idea of distributing her old papers to her class to see their comments. Often, I take off the names of students and distribute past work, but I have never shown the class any of my writing for workshop. I like the attitude that this process fosters in the classroom and the workshop environment. By giving students my work, it would allow them to see that no one reaches the perfect pinnacle of writing. I think in public education, we too often rely on the teacher as the authority and the students are expected to copy that perfection. That will never work with writing. I even notice this attitude in my comments to student writing and in my workshop comments. I use words like "I would," and "we should", etc. This language reinforces the idea that I have all the answers, and the students will just never understand. I am making a concerted effort to change this belief because it goes against the nature of teaching writing.
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