A New Poem
I am so glad that Guri is writing poems again—after many years of not doing so. In one of her most recent, “Acceptance,” she explores past and present in a way that I find particularly poignant:
Acceptance
The practice of acceptance
begins
as I imagine myself a blanket
spread over grass.
The blanket must accept
all that falls upon it:
rain, shadow, leaf, light.
Loss, too, is here,
the absence of something
tangible.
What was concrete
is now ephemeral.
I hear voices nearby
but turn my attention to the ant
crawling across the blanket.
Grief falls as a stone
to the bottom of a well.
It can go no further.
It will never be heavier
nor lighter,
will not sink further
nor float to the top.
The well is loneliness
spelled in drops of water.
I write down my memories
on little scraps of paper,
on colored ribbon,
on strands of your long hair.
All these things
I scatter across the blanket.
In the well,
the stone will lie forever
while planets turn,
clouds shift,
stars implode.
I am speechless before this spectacle,
the unfolding of time,
the creation
of distance.
October 12, 2008
by Guri Andermann
Election
I confess to being caught up in the tides of change, in the steady mantra of “yes, we can.” Tuesday, November 4th, in Boston the sky was bright and crisp—the leaves were gems—and the lines were long. Anticipation hung in the air, and the evening news gave us early confirmation. The suspense did not last long. Still, the victory is bittersweet: on the radio yesterday, I heard that many of those drawn to the polls because of Obama’s call for a new day were the same voters who said no to gay/lesbian marriage in California. Other states created more barriers incuding Arkansas—stating that gay/lesbian couples cannot adopt children.
Bardo Again
Came across this quotation from Lionel Trilling:
“Between is the only honest place to be.”
Saturday in New Jersey
Just returned from a writers/editors conference at Rutgers University. What a well-conceived, well-organized event—a one day conference during which writers, editors, and agents mingle. And I was most impressed with the editors I met—all of them young and passionate, intelligent and thoughtful. They love books. They love good writing. And they volunteered a Saturday to offer encouragement, advice, and feedback. Trying to market one’s work can often feel discouraging, but the Rutgers University Council on Children’s Literature has found a way to make it encouraging. For that, I am grateful.
wiki teaching
Creating a collaborative website with students has been really fun. Students now have their own homepages from which they link their assignments. Their first papers/first drafts have been posted, and I have visited each one, making comments as I go. Students seem intrigued by this system.
I also did the first assignment along with my students, posting my first draft for them to see. Many commented that my draft inspired them or helped them to write their own.
Next steps, students will team up and visit each other’s sites/papers. I have asked them to identify main ideas and supporting evidence in the papers they read. In class, we are doing this same exercise with essays from our text book.
So far, I love this experiment.