Everybody Go Read This Now

I'm supposed to be on the final 1% of getting ready to move. Kate to New Hampshire, me to New Hampshire then back down here until the end of the semester.

Then I find Blotchmen.

Everybody, and by everybody I mean every single one of you even vaguely-geeky students of literature out there, go read it.

Rexroth by Unicorn

This is just a really nice-looking book of poetry. It's the trade edition of Kenneth Rexroth's Sky Sea Birds Trees Earth House Beasts Flowers, published by Unicorn Press (founded and run by my friend Al Brilliant). The photos aren't spectacular, but you should look up Al if you're ever in Greensboro (you can find him as the owner of the Community Book Shop) to get your own copy.

Too Much Packing!

How to Use Irony, and Lots of It, in a Title

From blognigger.com: "Dyslexic Negro Cryptographer Lightly Etches Code Into McCain Volunteer's Face While She Remains Perfectly Still"...

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In unrelated news, my dissertation proposal has moved one step closer to approval.

In related-to-that news, the dissertation itself is progressing nicely.

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In news that is somehow related to something, head over to The Splinter Generation, where my poem "The garbage man will make it all all right" is one of the pieces representing my fractured 15-35 year old demographic.

The poem is dedicated to Nandra Perry. She popped into my office today to say that since the poem appeared in The Texas Observer, she's been getting contacted by people she hasn't heard from in years. Ironic poetry, bringing people together in totally random ways :-)

Smart Games, Dumb/Smart Gamers, Dumb Politics

Smart Games:

Real world definition of "mature": Showing the mental, emotional, or physical characteristics associated with a fully developed person; involving serious thought.

Videogame definition of "mature":
Shits, tits and gibs.

What is adult? According to ratings boards and hand-wringing politicians, the only qualifications necessary are a bucket of blood, a stream of foul profanity and a parade of naughty lady parts. Ironically, the very things that are included to win over immature teenage boys.

The following games, however, define adult in a different way. They tackle challenging themes, explore intellectual ideas and deal with complex characters in complicated relationships. They add shades of grey to an otherwise black-and-white form of entertainment.

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Smart Game, Smart/Dumb Gamers

Yesterday we received an email in tips from Nsider on behalf of True-Gaming.net that was sent to Media Molecule and Sony regarding the Qu'ran passages in LittleBigPlanet's music that resulted in the worldwide recall of the title just a week before release. the email explains the passages and goes on to request that they be removed from the title.

In case you don't pick up on it, the gamers writing comments to the effect that this is not censorship are the smart ones.

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Dumb Politics

I try to not weigh in on politics on this blog. I have various reasons, not least of which is my position as an instructor. For better or worse, I help my students to define/redefine/develop their own political position, even when I stringently disagree with those positions. I get a certain amount of enjoyment from reaching the end of a semester and getting student feedback that says my politics were evident, then seeing very different politics named by different people.

This particular moment is getting to me, however. It's the William Ayers issue, specifically the Right's attempt to connect Obama to Ayers. Now, my problem isn't even the mudslinging aspect of this game. I've read editorials and political pamphlets going back to the founding of the country, and if you think this kind of shit hasn't been around since Washington's reelection, you're kidding yourself. Actually, they were even meaner back then.

No, my problem is the ideological and military implications of casting Ayers as a terrorist. If that's the case, it means that even though he's now a professor, hasn't bombed anything in years, and lives a fairly quiet (if still politically active) life, he's still a terrorist. Which in turn means that terrorists can't change. Once a terrorist, always a terrorist. Which means the only thing we can do is kill them. We can't reeducate them, can't win their hearts and minds, can't convince them they were wrong or even misguided. At best we can turn their attention to someone they hate more than us. But more likely, we'll just have to fight until one or the other is dead.

That position is neither Right nor Left. It's just scary.

Mic Check Presents: Stephen Sargent

Yes, at last, I give you video of Steve. Take heart, dear readers, for this is not just video of Steve's last performance at Mic Check, but 25 minutes of Steve's last performance at Mic Check. I had to let the video render overnight; that's how much Steve you're getting.

It's all in one file and may take a bit to buffer. This is partly because I'm pressed for time lately, and breaking the video out into six or seven segments would have increased my workload by, well, six- or seven-fold. It's also because Steve, like most features, does a little banter and explanation between poems, and I figured that I should leave that in, this being his last performance and all.

Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Dreams vs. TV: Which Says More About Me?

My dream last night (not incidentally, this is one of the most "normal" and least-frightening dreams I've ever had):

I'm teaching an Intro to Composition course in an auditorium-style room. Maybe a hundred students but still plenty of empty chairs. It's the first day of class, so I go through the syllabus, do a few theatrical flourishes to get them interested in sticking out the semester, and everything works. Students cheering and clapping. Then I look around and see a number of faculty from the English Department in the crowd. They're scowling. I realize that I haven't mixed the acid and water yet - there are 5 gallon jugs of hydrochloric acid and similar jugs of water over on the side of the room. So I'm standing there with a jug in each hand (apparently I was Superman in this dream) but am unable to remember whether you add the acid to the water or vice versa. This goes on for several very uncomfortable minutes, and then I wake up.

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Five favorite TV shows:

1. Looney Tunes*
2. Monty Python's Flying Circus
3. Deadwood
4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer**
5. Battlestar Galactica (new version)***

*If Looney Tunes doesn't count as a show, per se, shift everything up and add Gilmore Girls in the number five spot.

**Can I squeak Angel into this same space?

***I reserve the right to change this based on what happens in the last half of the last season.

Wooden Boys and Deadlier Toys

OK boys and girls, here's the spiel that you shouldn't get from your poet.

This is not a finished poem, but I performed it anyway. I'm not sure how to finish it, because I'm not sure what it's about. I know what started it, and what writing it was about. It was the conjunction of my former slam teammate Byron once telling me I was monotone in my performances, reading an article about Heath Ledger preparing for his role as the Joker by studying ventriloquists' dummies (the way their voices are disembodied), and a line in Fables #36 (one of the best covers for that comic, incidentally) that references what Little Boy Blue is carrying in the Witching Cloak ("wooden boys" referring to Pinocchio's body and "deadlier toys" referring to the Vorpal Sword).

So yeah, all those elements combined to create this piece, which doesn't have anything to do with the Vorpal Sword but lots to do with Pinocchio, which has a lot to do with ventriloquism but nothing to do with the Joker, and for me has to do with what you sacrifice for your art. I don't think that any of that comes through, nor do I expect an audience to get those things from it. The words have to change, but I'll meditate on it all for a while. In the meantime, apparently it is just damn creepy.

Wooden Boys and Deadlier Toys

You may now address mail to Dr. and Mr. Stumpo

:-)

These are (some of) the Happy Stories

Kate defends her dissertation today. That's happy. That's very happy. Incidentally, for those of you keeping score as to who is smarter/wears the pants/whatever in this relationship, the title of her dissertation is FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES OF GOLD NANOPARTICLE MATRICES FOR LASER DESORPTION/IONIZATION MASS SPECTROMETRY
. It isn't actually all bold-face and majuscule and whatnot, but a title like this really sort of implies such typography.

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I promised happy anecdotes/stories related to teaching to balance out the sad stories from yesterday. Here goes:

At BJHS, one of the activities that led to friction between myself and the program director was the following - I told my class to imagine themselves a few years down the road, sitting in a bar, when one of the patrons loudly says "Those stupid spics can't do shit." How do they react? The first response was to kick the guy's ass. The class was somewhat surprised when I actually wrote that on the board. Further responses were to go talk to him and to prove him wrong. I asked what would happen if we did in fact go beat the guy down. A couple of people noted that the 11 o'clock news would just show another nonwhite person from the South Side getting arrested. OK, next option, talk to him. Much as I'd love to say that's a great idea - we're in an English class after all - we decided that the guy isn't likely to listen. Final option, prove him wrong. But how? The class was very, very quiet for a full minute or two. I finally pressed one girl directly - "Prove to me that you're not stupid." She leaned over and whispered nervously in Spanish to her friend. Very good, I said, you can speak two languages fluently. That's certainly proof. We then went around the room with each person demonstrating some undeniable skill. I don't expect that it was a life-changing moment, but each kid left that day reminded of at least one thing at his or her immediate disposal that would refute bigots.

Other moments, these all involving college students I've taught (and as opposed to the first story, examples that developed organically/without my direct intervention):

The young man whose favorite radio programs were talk shows hosted by Limbaugh and Hannity, and the young lady who, in her words, had "literally hugged a tree." Every day after our Intro to Rhetoric and Composition class, they'd go to the computer lab and spend half an hour to an hour in friendly debate and sharing of information.

The young lady whose final project for Intro to Rhet/Comp was an analysis of drug use in her small hometown. She ended up using information from that project to get an internship with the FBI, which fortuitously led to her participation in fieldwork (actual drug busts, etc), and last I heard from her, she's pursuing a graduate degree before applying to the FBI for a career position.

The 8-9 students from last Spring's Intro to Creative Writing who still hang out with each other to cook and write (and give me crap, as I deserve, from time to time via email).

Being taught some basic ASL by a deaf creative writing student and the class interpreter (this experience became my performance poem "Sign of the Turtle").

The paper casting Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree as the narrative of an abusive relationship. That same summer session (this was an Intro to Lit course), very very smart treatments of Marie de France's Guigemar and comparative linguistic analyses of The Declaration of Independence and A Declaration of the Rights of Woman. OK, I laid the basic groundwork for the papers, but left so much room available regarding the topic that there was still a huge amount of creativity in these choices. It was my first time teaching Intro to Lit, and I felt overjoyed that the "give them enough rope with which to hang themselves" approach would not fail, despite the bad rep undergraduates often have (especially among grad students).

These are the Sad Stories

Between my last post and an extended conversation over at John Galliher's blog, I'm stuck remembering sad stories. For anybody wondering how my current teaching persona and philosophy were formed, here's a partial insight. These were all students of mine at Benito Juarez High School in Chicago, where I student-taught. I didn't complete the semester. That wasn't because of the students and is another (angry, not sad) story.

I remember the names, but I'm leaving them out.

The girl who came in 15 minutes late on the first day. She was on crutches. I asked her what had happened. "I got shot." It remains the only time I've ever been in a classroom with no response (sometimes I don't voice my response, but really, what in teacher training prepares you for that moment?). I later found out she'd been in a driveby over the summer coming out of an apartment with two friends - one was still in the hospital, one died instantly.

The boy who was failing World Lit (senior level English) and asked me for a D so that he could join the Marines in the Spring.

The girl who was so proud the day she joined the Latin King Killers.

The boy who pronounced "machine" as "macheen" and caught crap for it from all his (Mexican/Mexican-American) classmates.

The boy in British Lit (junior level English) who was marked as being in special ed. I could never figure out why, since he was the smartest one in the class by far. On one of my last days there, he handed me The Trial saying, "I've read everything by Kafka, but this is my favorite because this is my life." I still have that book.

Somebody make me tell happy stories tomorrow. They exist.

Only the Names have been Changed

One of my very best friends teaches 6th grade Language Arts. He's good at it. For example, one of his former students is now a 7th grader making a B in honors English. This same student is failing all of his other courses, which range from regular to remedial. My friend is the one who managed to get this kid to give a shit about anything at all related to school.

For this and many other reasons, I'd love to name my friend here. If you ever come to Bryan-College Station, you'd want to meet him. You'd want your children to be taught by him. An incident of a month ago, however, suggests to me that I might not be able to name my friend, at least in his capacity as a teacher, on this blog.

He broke up a fight between two students, one who knew him, one who didn't. The one who knew him went limp immediately upon being dragged away, choosing to not aim a blow at the teacher as hormone-driven young men often do. The other, I'm not sure. My friend received the followup report to this incident just recently. His former student received standard in-school punishment for fighting. The other was charged with a felony for having a gun in his bag and intending to kill his opponent.

That's right - my friend, the good teacher, in breaking up a fight, might have been shot by a 7th grader if things went wrong.

This post could be about violence in schools or racism in BCS (my friend has been called a "nigger" by young black men at his school who are woefully unaware of just how sad that statement is) or any number of subjects. But for the moment, it's about how I'm afraid to print my friend's name because it might identify him as party to a felony. It's not that the other gang members will hunt him down or anything so dramatic, but that per school rules, we probably aren't allowed to know this happened.

ENGL235, here's your reading for Monday

Well, kindasorta. You've received a handout of sorts containing these readings.

Terrance Hayes - "gander," "nuclear," and "ambulance" from Hip Logic

Naomi Shihab Nye - "Half-and-Half" from fuel

Jimmy Santiago Baca - "X" from the latter half of Martin & Meditations on the South Valley

Suzanne Wise - "Autobiography" from The Kingdom of the Subjunctive

Gabriel Gudding - "Youth of the Backhoe" from A Defense of Poetry

Rita Dove - "Courtship," "Courtship, Diligence," and "Chronology" from Thomas and Beulah

The topics for Monday: Reception, Reinvention, and Tradition.

Prepping, Bookhabit,

I made some quick (literally - took me about ten minutes) changes to my website to prepare for the release of Arts & Crafts. Once this is done up properly, you should be able to stream all of the audio and video as well as download them wholesale. If you want to grab the cover art early, just right-click and Save As.

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Anybody know if this Bookhabit.com/New Zealand Poetry Society contest is legit?

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Yet another brief October post. There's too much real life at the moment.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow (and tomorrow)

It's October, and those of you anxiously awaiting Arts & Crafts (by the way, I'm quite flattered that some of you are actually anxiously awaiting it) will notice that it's not here yet. Thanks to the dissertation, dissertation proposal, grading, and selling the house, everything is delaying everything else. I'm also waiting on some permissions from Poetry Slam Inc to use footage from the 2007 National Poetry Slam. I'm giving that two more weeks, after which I'll just use video from one of the team practices.

To tide you over, or something, here's another piece from the album, appropriately titled "In Absentia" and dealing with the presence/absence of the author.