Everyday I give my students a list of things they must accomplish before the next day. The intention is that they use their home time productively. Then I come home and watch trashy TV. Time to put my mind where my mouth is.
8.09.2010
7.29.2010
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Certainly not everything was bad. Breath still flowed in and out. A heart still beat. She was not dumb or ill enough to believe she was better off dead. Though her father had failed her and her mother betrayed her, though house was not home, and safe was not certain, a glimmer of hope still existed. Leaving town would only be the beginning of a new life. She was certain the road would be smoother once she was in the driver's seat.
Mary
In front of the church
Mary stands in a bed of flowers
Not so tall, but certainly stoic
Our Lady of El Barrio.
There is a woman who comes
often, to stand in front of her.
So casually leaning
So adoringly gazing
upward at her face.
What does she ask for?
What does she wish?
Has her faith been tested, revived, renewed?
What blessing will be bestowed?
What peace given?
That a bosom so hard, so unyielding, so exposed
Should provide such comfort
Puts us all to shame.
Here is a revision I did for Poetry Class, playing around with the line breaks:
Madre
Down the block, in front of the church
Mary stands in a bed of flowers.
Not so tall, but certainly stoic.
Our Lady of El Barrio.
There is a woman who comes often
to stand in front of her, hands clasped.
So casually leaning, so adoringly gazing,
upward at her face.
What does she ask for, what does she
wish? Has her faith been tested, revived,
renewed? What blessing will be
bestowed? What peace given?
That a bosom so hard, so unyielding, so exposed
should provide such comfort
is a wonderous thing
indeed.
2.23.2010
Assignment 14: Find a New Perspective
Failing and Flying
by Jack Gilbert
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
"Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert, from Refusing Heaven. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2005 . Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
1.18.2010
Assignment 13: Become Obsessed With a Puzzle
http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/posh.html