Open House

One of the real marathon days of the school year is over and done--for parents and for students. I was at work yesterday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. for Open House. And it's not the Open House your parents went to when you were growing up either. Open House doesn't mean the doors to the building are open from 4 to 6:30 and teachers are in their classrooms grading papers and available to meet and greet parents as they explore the school facilities at their own leisure. Oh no. It's a full-scale, theatre of the absurd-esque, dramatic production, complete with scary clowns "charading" the hallways and miming for money, an hour long public address in the auditorium to a captive audience of antsy observers, and followed by two complete cycles of the bell schedule where parents are forced to race around the building following their children's A day and then B day class schedules. Teachers give the parents ten-minute informational presentations, the bell rings, and then the parents race the clock across the building to the next class, hoping not to be tardy. Four hours later, not a single parent has met a teacher or administrator for any sort of meaningful conversation or introductions, and everyone involved, from the wonderful PTSA volunteer to Danny's poor little sister who is too young to stay home alone, is slam exhausted.

I used to wear a big-fake smile and dance around the room telling the parents all my credentials and qualifications and what they should expect out of their children and my rules and requirements and all about my philosophies and methodologies and assignments and reading. I hated it. I mean really--hated--it. Because you're good and comfortable with kids doesn't mean you like talking to their parents in a setting like that. If I'd wanted to talk to large rooms full of adults, I'd have been a preacher or a politician--or a principal. That's not what I do.

So this year, I continued something I started last year. I put William Carlos Williams's poem "This is Just to Say" on the Smartboard, and I taught it to them.

They signed in, had a seat, and when the bell rang, I walked in, said, "Okay let's get started. This is what we do in class....volunteer to read the poem?.......Mr. Z, thank you. Go ahead..."

"This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold"

"Well read! Where might you find this piece of writing.........right! On the fridge........what is it?............ooooo, a confession, good analysis. Nice word..........this is a poetic form known as syncopated free verse--a HUGE little poem that just continues to bloom in the mind over time--in my case, it's been blooming for about 20 years now, unfolding more and more every year...........so you guys identify with this?.............you eat your wife's Ben and Jerry's?! I'd never do that lol...........is the plum an apple? Is the speaker Adam? Maybe. Is it virginity? gasp Innocence? better....maybe........Is it easier to get forgiveness than permission? Yes..........Will your child feed me a line like this at some point in the school year? lol. Yes...............Do ya'll see what's going on in here? Yes........rinnnnnnnnng.....Bye now! Thanks for coming! Call me if you need anything......don't forget your homework!!!!! lol." They shuffled out of the room just like their kids--smiling and joking. It was actually fun. Fast, furious, and fun.

My experience this time turned out to be positive--but only cause I just did what I do everyday instead of trying to kiss proverbial ass with a dog and pony show. The new and improved Open House definitely goes right along with every other aspect of the "more is better" American way. We're gonna force teachers to be transparent. We're gonna publish their test scores in the newspaper. We're gonna make them publish two grades a week on Edline. But the politicians, administrators and parents can run amuck. I heard there were teachers who got grilled about their AP scores. Parents openly challenged one master teacher's methods in this open-to-the-public, classroom setting. I observed it personally during my "prep" period (I sat in her room and saw it with my own two eyes). One teacher of juniors was asked by a parent--publicly, and in an accusatory tone I might add--if they would be exposing his child to rated "R" movies. The teacher had never done such a thing in her career--well maybe a not-rated-R scene from a rated R movie, just to make a point or introduce a lesson. The hallways are rated X. Heaven forbid a history teacher use a scene from Forrest Gump to make a teaching moment come alive a little.

I think, in the end, everyone involved would have been just as happy to mingle around the building, tour the beautiful campus, stand out by the reflection pool for a minute, and go introduce themselves to the teachers that Danny had written down on a scrap piece of paper, his favorites of course, for his parents to make sure and say hello to.

What Every Little Boy Knows

Because of baseball.

A beautifully written, neat little essay by T.R. Heally: "Chin Music"

My recommended reading for the month of September. (See sidebar.)

The Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech

For the last two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it a highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't have considered it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice-versa, sends you a gift--that's something! When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies--that's something! When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter--that's something! When you have a father and mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body--it's a blessing! When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you knew existed--that's the finest I know!

Gehrig died within a year of his retirement from baseball. His speech, one of the finest I know, was pieced together using first hand accounts, brief audio clips and video footage, notes that people scribbled down on the spot. The fans and writers who were sitting in the stands, in attendance on that glorious day, heard what Gehrig said and passed it along.

This is the stuff myths are made of.

Bookie Jones

We have a new member in our family since I last wrote. His name is Chipper Jones, or "Bookie Dawg" if R.L.'s being silly. He's an 8 month old Flat-Coated Retriever from Cahaba Flat-Coated Retrievers in Birmingham.

Last year, I read the novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. The story is a retelling of Hamlet set in rural Wisconsin and revolves around a family of 2nd generation dog breeders and their mythic, "homemade" breed of dogs. Their son, Edgar, is a mute boy, especially gifted in "dog whispering," who runs away after his father dies, escorted by a litter of loyal puppies that he has raised and trained all by himself. Edgar, like Hamlet, suspects that his Uncle Claude has murdered his father, Gar, to be with his mother, Trudy, and to take over the family business. (Personally, I love the character names.) If you've read Hamlet, it's not a big secret what happens, but it's still riveting and even surprising how it all unfolds. I highly recommend it. The book is FILLED with beautiful and insightful characterizations of dogs--their movement , their motivation, even their thoughts and intuitions.

I loved the novel, and the more I read it, the more I missed having a dog in the family. I'm talking about a strange sort of deep, inner tug-toy desire for a new dog. H and I have had a dog or dogs for the vast majority of our nineteen years together, and after a year and a half of dog free living--a nice break by the way--that void was starting to howl. So by the end of the novel, I had researched every breed known to God and man, from the Nova Scotia Duck-Tolling Retriever to the weenie dog, and settled on FCR's. All the info out there sounded too good to be true. I read How to Raise the Perfect Dog by Cesar the Great cover to cover, twice. I got all the props ready--crate, bully sticks (one of Cesar's favorite tricks), Kongs. I started saving tennis balls left over from matches and tournaments. I bought squeeky toys. H and I brainstormed the "name list" for a couple of months. (Chipper wasn't even on it.) I interviewed veterinarians. I mapped out and practiced walking routes in the neighborhood, and I designed my own, original training and thinking exercises. I left no water dish unturned.

We've had Chipper Jones for over six months now, and he's been a dandy addition to our home and family. I don't think I've invested this much of myself into any family pet ever--and that's probably saying something. And after several rough patches through puppyhood and puberty (like the time I ran over him on the four-wheeler at the cabin--he wasn't hurt...), the hard work is starting to pay off. Chipper is turning into the mature, responsive dog that I had envisioned. He's R.L.'s best friend and companion, sparring partner and mischief accomplice. And H has only just begun to work her special brand of magic with him. (She has a way with dogs that I can only attribute to her Cherokee side. It's a marvel to witness her when she gets down on the floor to caress and whisper in a dog's ear.) He's even helped me lose twenty pounds.

So, Chipper and I have started preparing for dove season. I've been shooting .22 blanks off at every meal before he eats and taking him out on the boat a lot to make sure he's cool on Labor Day weekend. My buddy even stuck a dove in the freezer for me for live retrieving and "lost bird" exercises. He's coming along nicely and should be ready to go Saturday, September 3rd. It's gonna be a big day for us. Hopefully one where we begin to establish a bond only understood by very few, lucky hunters and their good ole dogs. I've observed it between my Dad and his Yellow Lab, Wheat, and between Dad's friend Nathan and Jack the pointing English Setter, but I've never had it myself.

Last week, on Lake Maumelle during an early morning fishing trip/dog training session, I let him jump out of the boat for a refreshing dip, and he swam all the way UNDER the boat--went down on the starboard side and came up on the port side. I kid you not. Damnedest thing I've ever seen a dog do in my life.

I've thought for a while that when he gets a little more distinguished and mature that I'm gonna start calling him Mr. Jones. You're well on your way Bookie Buke.

Short Story Links

These are some short stories that I've recommended over the past year or so. I'm taking them off my navigation sidebar to use the space for other things, but I wanted to preserve the links. Here they are:

"The Great Stone Face" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The Swimmer" by John Cheever

"The Artificial Nigger" by Flannery O'Connor

"Curt Schilling and The Lord of Hosts" by Walter Maroney

"The Grave by the Handpost" by Thomas Hardy

from "Here is a Lesson in Creative Writing"

by Kurt Vonnegut

"FIRST RULE:  Do not use semicolons.  They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing.  All they do is show you've been to college."

Advice to My Son

by Peter Meinke

The trick is, to live your days

as if each one may be your last

(for they go fast, and young men lose their lives

in strange and unimaginable ways)

but at the same time, plan long range

(for they go slow: if you survive

the shattered windshield and the bursting shell

you will arrive

at our approximation here below

of heaven or hell).

To be specific, between the peony and the rose

plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;

beauty is nectar

and nectar, in a desert, saves--

but the stomach craves a stronger sustenance

than the honied vine.

Therefore, marry a pretty girl

after seeing her mother;

speak truth to one man,

work with another;

and always serve bread with your wine.

But, son,

always serve wine.

Dolor

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces. 

Theodore Roethke 

Elizabeth Alexander and Colbert

Elizabeth Alexander and her inaugural poem "Praise Song for the Day"  have been raked across the coals by just about everyone I know and everything I've read.  I was not horrified by her poem.  I even liked it.  She.  could.  have.  done.  a better.  job.  with the.  presentation, sure.  But remember, she was following up Obama's speech.  That's like Jimi Hendrix opening for The Jonas Brothers.  She has fun and even briefly explains what she was doing with the poem in this interview on The Colbert Report.  Check it out.  It's funny. 

New Beginnings--New Hope--New Era

from the memoirs of Mary Rome Foster

January 20, 1993

written at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland

"New Beginnings--New Hope"  

               ...Inauguration Theme, Bill Clinton, 1993.

"Remarkable response."  The words are in my chart  

It's legal--we can really rejoice

The CT scans show no cancer activity in any other

       part of my body

And marked and significant reduction, both in number

     of tumors and in their size, in my lungs

We can really rejoice--I remain on taxol alone as an

     outpatient--will be treated today, return home

     tonight, back for my next cycle February 8 & 9

Inauguration Day!  It's most exciting being in 

     Washington on this historic day

The city is a-twitter and I can feel the excitement

     in the air

It's really quite electric in a subtle and sophisticated way

I do sense a caution in the cold, crisp January air

For today, in many places around the world

There is war and there is rumor of such

Madmen continue to roam and to hold the planet

     hostage at their will

Injustice everywhere abounds--hunger, fear, homelessness,

     anxiety, hopelessness--all forms of oppression

Yet, it's encouraging to watch a veritable parade of

     Americans from every segment of the society

Taking part in and being part of the new order

Presently, I sit next to an HIV-positive, full-blown

     AIDS patient

He played left defense, high school football, could

     bench press his weight

Now weighs 110 pounds (prob'ly soaking wet!)

He coughs and struggles and his only thoughts 

     are of the disease, with occasional lapse into 

     memories of football

He is oppressed and--he is one of the people

I pray he'll be allowed in the parade

Of course I've watched the Inauguration and

     the parade

And I've been moved by the number of times

     the word "hope" has appeared--in speech,

     in music, on posters

Hope--it's one of those elusive words

And it is the stuff of which life is made

Hope is available even in the midst of tragedy and trauma

     and it's usually evident in the lives of those

     who have it

It's late in the afternoon; it's been a perfectly gorgeous

     day in the nation's capital

The brilliant blue sky is beginning to soften as the

     pinks and purples of sunset move across the landscape

Lights are coming on and they add to the spectacular

     beauty as night descends

Strains of "God Bless America" and "America, the Beautiful" 

     pass through my sleepy mind

God bless doctors and nurses and research scientists

God bless Bobby and Sherry and Pam (my Columbia 

     oncology team)

God bless Charlie and Grace and Ron and Winnie

God bless Phillip, Roland and Gena, Carolyn, and Judy

God bless Jack, Gene and Jim, Kathy and Bernie

All these folk and countless host of others--

     they--we are America--we are in community 

     with the world

And so, tonight, even as the lights twinkle and the Capitol 

     and the Lincoln Memorial exude a deeply

     spiritual presence on this day of new beginnings

I celebrate new hope for myself, for my

     country, for my world

And I pray for for every individual who inhabits

     this planet

For we all touch whether we wish to or not

And we, each and all, in one way or another,

     determine the todays and tomorrows of

      one another

May we joyfully embrace the opportunity to be

     involved with living

New Beginnings--New Hope

Uh-hm-m-m.  Works for me

God Bless John and Matt and Mary Catherine and 

     Janis and Pat and... God bless...

Mom continues to teach me.  I always reflect on words that she spoke and sang, but just recently I have begun to clue in on her writing.  Whole volumes--personal essays, poems, theology projects--were dumped on me right after her death.  I wasn't able to read any of it at the time.  Just made me too sad, too angry.  She had written as a hobby her whole life.  Dad reminded me of this piece yesterday morning so I pulled it out and read it and several things leapt out.  

Obviously, it is poignant today, Inauguration Day, 2009, knowing where we have been and what all has unfolded since her hopeful poem.  Still, Mom would be delighted with America today like so many of us are.  She would insist that we get it right this time like so many of us do.  "No distractions.  No hubris.  Most importantly no vendetta.  Take nothing for granted.  But breathe in justice, and move forward," she would say.  She'll be singing "Amazing Grace" at the celebration for those of us who still hear her.  Listen for it.  

Less obvious to most readers is her experimentation with a form of poetry called oracular free verse, a verse form characterized by long, rambling lines channelled by the poet from some mystical or divine source; syntactical parallelism, repetition of sentence structure from line to line; cataloging, or listing; and hanging (or "reverse") indentation, used to delineate line length since paper-pages are only so wide.  Does she allude to Whitman at the end?  Walt Whitman, the American master of oracular free verse?  "I celebrate new hope for myself, for my country, for my world...For we all touch whether we wish to or not," she says, and Whitman: "I celebrate myself;/And what I assume you shall assume;/For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you."  

Could she?  I never knew.  I did not edit her piece at all except to correct her spelling of "innauguration."  She drafted it in her beautiful handwriting while she was hooked up to an IV pumping experimental God knows what into her veins.  She never revised it to my knowledge; it's just a draft.  As a Creative Writing teacher, I was impressed with her willingness to experiment with verse form and her knowledge and application of the appropriate poetic devices.  She was obviously researching and studying the art more than I realized.  A mountain girl from Madison County, NC who learned how to sing and made sure she got herself a good education.  No advanced degrees so she studied on her own.  Couldn't get the man to ordain her so she went straight to the Source.  She never quit growing, and she never quits growing.  

We're on the same plane of light this new day, Mama.  I love you.

--MJF

from Still Life With Woodpecker

by Tom Robbins (1980)

"Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.  Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.  Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.  There is only one serious question.  And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?  Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.  Answer me that and I will ease your mind about the beginning and end of time."

--MJF

Mr. Head

from "The Artificial Nigger"

by Flannery

"The thing to do with a boy," he said sagely, "is to show him all it is to show. Don't hold nothing back."

--MJF

Friends Do

A precious friend of mine wrote and sent me this letter dated 04 jan 2009:

i was walking in bryce canyon today. 

years ago.

and i sat under a ponderosa pine tree. 

on a bench. on a solid bench. 

i looked up while the snow fell on my face. 

the sky was covered in grey. 

the snow stopped. 

and a ray of sunshine fell upon my face

to warm it. 

to let me know that i needed to be strong for you. 

that i needed to be there for you. 

to connect us. 

she was saying it was ok. 

she wanted me to tell you

that she was where she needed to be. 

even though she couldn't be there for you. 

and then the sky was covered again

as quickly as it had broken. 

i walked up that canyon. maybe. 

i don't remember. 

i may have floated to the top. 

maybe i was carried. 

she was always that strong. 

just like you. 

--Jay B.

My friend, T. Wiz, would destroy him.

Bruce Lee playing Ping Pong with nunchackus.  

School starts back today.  

I'm ready to go.  No soul-sucking P.D. (Professional Development) this time before the students' return.  The District took our day(s) of winter holiday teacher meetings away from us this year because so many teachers failed to take advantage of the opportunity in years past.  Awww...

Timeout.  Idea:  I will compile a list of acronyms in education for you.  We're [they're] getting worse than the military.  You're not going to believe it.  I hate acronyms.  Obama, can you criminalize acronyms in education?  Executive order?  That's CHANGE I can believe in!  

We have a week until semester exams, time for intensive, style analysis, writing workshops.  Then we get down to the business of Poetry.  Dead white dudes first:  John Donne (DUN!), George Herbert, Andrew Marvell; Ben Jonson, Suckling, Lovelace, Herrick (We laugh at him.  Probably shouldn't, but we do.); Thomas Gray, Robbie Burns, William Blake (My favorite.); William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (My other favorite.); Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Keats.  I've never made it any further than this.  But this year, I sit poised to hit some modern American poets.  Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Roethke, Ginsberg (I had wine and cheese with him after a reading at UNC Asheville and gave him my poem, "Ginsberg Wears Gap Khakis."  We were both obviously out of our elements at the time.  He read the title and folded it in thirds and put it in his tweed jacket-pocket [over his heart].  He was kinda cross-eyed up close.  I think he threw it away.  It wasn't mean.  Not nice.  (See Rolling Stone advertisement, mid-90's.)  As he was tucking it away, he half-smiled and took time to tell me a story about two times that he visited with W.C. Williams.  In hindsight, the point of the story must have been that he didn't use the precious time to criticize W.C.  He was mumbling awful all night, like the whole right side of his face wouldn't work, so I might have missed something.), Michael Harper.  Gimme some women, please some diversity.  Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Anne Sexton, Nikki Giovanni, Margaret Atwood.  And I'd love to find time for Wilfred Owen, T.S. Eliot, Yeats, W.H. Auden, Henry Reed, Dylan Thomas, e e cummings, D.H. Lawrence, John Crowe Ransom, Anne Sexton May Swenson, Jean Toomer, Richard Wilbur!, James Wright, Hart Crane, Countee Cullen, Philip Larkin, Archibald MacLeish, Rita Dove, Billie Collins, Jorie Graham, Gary Soto, Robert Penn Warren, Adrienne Rich, Cathy Song, Lawrence Ferlenghetti, Raymond Carver, Sandra Cisneros, and Louise Erdrich!  

I can't wait, but I need help; I need to cull the list, and I'd love specific suggestions.  How can I group those guys after the Romantics to get them all in? 

Influential poets and poems from your own secret educations?    

Y'all have a great new year now.  I may vanish like peanut butter fudge.

--MJF

The bounds of the Universe are thin on January the 4th.

[if there are any heavens]

by e.e. cummings

if there are any heavens my mother will (all by herself) have

one.  It will not be a pansy heaven nor

a fragile heaven of lillies-of-the-field but

it wll be a heaven of black-red roses

my father will be (deep like a rose

tall like a rose)

standing near my

(swaying over her

silent)

with eyes which are really petals and see

nothing with the face of a poet really which

is a flower and not a face with

hands

which whisper

This is my beloved my

                                        (suddenly in sunlight

he will bow,

& the whole garden will bow.)

                                                                                                          MRF and MJF

Burn a candle today if you have the time.

--MJF

Neddy Merrill Swims The Lucinda River

The narrator examines Neddy Merrill in John Cheever's short story "The Swimmer."

"Was his memory failing or had he so disciplined it in the repression of unpleasant facts that he had damaged his sense of the truth?"

--MJF

These are a few of my favorite things

from The Old Man and the Sea

by Ernest Hemingway

"Your stew is excellent," the old man said.

"Tell me about baseball," the boy asked him.

"In the American League it is the Yankees as I said," the old man said happily.

"They lost today," the boy told him.

"That means nothing, the great DiMaggio is himself again."

"They have other men on the team."

"Naturally. But he makes the difference.  In the other league, between Brooklyn and Philadelphia I must take Brooklyn.  But then I think of Dick Sisler and those great drives in the old park."

"There was nothing ever like them.  He hits the longest ball I have ever seen."

"Do you remember when he used to come to the Terrace?"

"I wanted to take him fishing but I was too timid to ask him.  Then I asked you to ask him and you were too timid."

"I know.  It was a great mistake.  He might have gone with us.  Then we would have that for all our lives.

"I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing," the old man said.  "They say his father was a fisherman.  Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand."

"The great Sisler's father was never poor and he, the father, was playing in the Big Leagues when he was my age."

"When I was your age I was before the mast on a square rigged ship that ran to Africa and I have seen the lions on the beaches in the evening."

"I know.  You told me."

"Should we talk about Africa or about baseball?"

"Baseball I think," the boy said.  "Tell me about the great John J. McGraw."  He said jota for J.

"He used to come to the Terrace sometimes too in the older days.  But he was rough and harsh-spoken and difficult when he was drinking.  His mind was on horses as well as baseball. At least he carried lists of horses at all times in his pocket and frequently spoke the names of horses on the telephone."

"He was a great manager," the boy said.  "My father thinks he was the greatest."

"Because he came here the most times," the old man said.  "If Durocher had continued to come here each year, your father would think him the greatest manager."

"Who is the greatest manager, really, Luque or Mike Gonzalez?"

"I think they are equal."

"And the best fisherman is you."

"No.  I know others better."

--MJF