Rain and Change

The rain is a constant drumming on the tiny patch of pavement by my front door. Hummingbirds don't care, bustle by my feeder with their vibrating bee-like wings. How lush the trees are, filling all eight panes of my window with tear-drop, ovoid and lace-edged leaves. I've been reading student responses to the poems of Tony Hoagland, Natasha Tretheway, Mary Oliver. I always hope that embedded in the stress of being a student, a little glimmer happens--a particular poem touches a student who never before interacted with poetry in that way. From their responses, it seems as if this does occur. It's why I teach. A few great teachers changed my life and my perceptions though a few did the opposite. It is my goal to value every student. I cringe when I see students humiliated or told they are incapable. We are all imperfect and learning is a process that never ends. How each of us approaches a task is highly individual. I strive to make classes meaningful for students who have no desire to be writers as well as those who do. It's not an easy task to teach, competing with text messaging and email--I understand the frustration of teachers. Even in a college class, many students have outside pressures. In the years I've been teaching, I have had a number of college students who are raising children, caring for sick parents, working full-time, or coping with their own medical challenges. I worked full-time when I was both an undergraduate and a graduate student and it was not easy. I would have gotten more out of my classes and probably put more into them as well if I didn't have to make a living. People have complicated lives. I like to think of a classroom as a place for a student to relax into learning and get excited about something outside him or herself. It's good to focus outside oneself--it's how we finally grow up. It is also good for writers to look around and see what isn't easily seen; the rabbit under the hedge, a honeybee hovering over the iris, seed pods blowing in the May breezes.

Dreams and Realities

A small interlude in Provincetown last week gave me both peace and perspective. There were abundant whale sightings and cool breezes. The ocean was gorgeous and wild one day, serene the next. There is something primal about being by the sea. I felt small and my stress was diminished by the great expanse. In daily life, it's easy to be overly focused on minutia---correcting papers, driving in traffic, paying bills. How short a time we have in this beautiful and flawed world. How much conflict is created by misunderstanding. I resolve to do better at detaching from issues over which I have no control. In writing, I strive for emotional truth. In the relationships that carry me, I aspire to honesty and appreciation. My dream is to keep writing and life separate, though life informs writing. Writing is an observation, an interaction with the world that is completely realized on the page. Life is ragged and complicated yet always worth it for the perfect moments--- a surprising synchronicity, loving attention, laughter, shared dreams. This week was the fifth anniversary of my father's death. He loved the ocean, as do I. There's a lot I will never know about his life but I did learn a love of language from him. Tonight when I teach my poetry class, I will think of the poetry read to me-Hardy and T.S. Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson and Ogden Nash. I will think of the late April morning when we scattered his ashes in the Atlantic Ocean and how memories float like dreams do--in and out of the conscious mind--never disappearing completely from sight.

Distraction and Discovery

I've always been distractable--known to drive eight miles out of my way to see a waterfall or spend fifteen minutes I don't have to spare talking to a stranger in a coffeeshop. As a teenager, I would scribble in notebooks in the back of classrooms, looking studious but dreaming about the intersection of branch and trunk or the lip of shore that awaits the tide. If called upon, I would come up with something that sounded vaguely like our assignment because luckily I can take in while I'm distracted. Today it is called multi-tasking and I don't know how to live any other way. A friend told me that she believes I'll continue this in retirement, if I ever retire. One can't retire from writing; it dogs you. And why would I? Ideas find me and I promise to send them out into the world. I'm not good at networking or marketing but writing is like breathing to me. I accept the fact that I may never enter the legendary "mid-career" stage of being a writer. I was a late bloomer. At the recent AWP conference in Denver, I saw writers in all stages of their careers---graduate students, famous writers, new favorites. The writing is everything. I don't care who is popular or touted by a famous author. I know what speaks to me. I strive to instill this same message in my students. Be true to the emotion. Lie about the details if it serves your writing but stay unfalteringly honest to the feelings. I enjoyed the workshops and most especially a reading from a new anthology edited by Kevin Young called "The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Loss," after the Elizabeth Bishop poem. The panelists who are also in the anthology were Elizabeth Alexander, Natasha Tretheway, Kevin Young, Nick Flynn, and Campbell MacGrath. Powerful poems, necessary topic. What a short time we have in this world and how much of it is wasted on disagreement, commerce, noise. On this cool day, I look at soft hum of green out my window. I can see. I can hear. I can love. I can taste (wonderful Moroccan stew I made last night). I can feel. One need not be a writer to use one's senses.