Kwame Dawes

Patricia,
Thank goodness your story was soooo theoretical because it would have been quite a dilemma had it actually happened. This is, at some level, a tough one, but for me it is not so tough. I am afraid my answer will not please the freedom of speech folks. The teacher’s declaration at the end of the class was wrong but understandable. You see, if he was in some schools here in South Carolina the entire thing could have been on tape. Indeed, one of our local poets was faced with a similar situation. It seems as if the administration at the school had decided that they would monitor her guest sessions in the classroom as a cautionary policy. Without letting her know, the intercom in the class room was kept open so that an administration could hear everything that was going on in the class. She found this out after there was some question about a poem that one of the students had written and the discussion that ensued. It was nota funny or lewd poem, but a poem expressing anger and pain about a rape she had experienced. The students wanted to talk about it and did. It was a painful session, but after the class, the poet was told that she should not have broached such a topic in the class or encouraged further discussion about it.

04.29.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Kwame Dawes

I am not sure what it is, but today, on two different occasions my children asked me whether I liked the idea of National Poetry Month. Actually, I know what prompted it.

04.29.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Patricia Smith

Did I get stiffed?

While working sporadically on a longer post, this question came up. Suddenly it hit me—Hey, I’m a blogger! Figured I might as well toss this quandary into your formidable laps.
Let’s say that I’ve been doing a theoretical poetry residency in a rather tony high school in a rather tony theoretical suburb just past, theoretically, Manhattan. The 11th-graders are theoretically typical–tethered to their cell phones, swathed in spandex, sporting tattoos, gleefully potty-mouthed, indulging in quick, furtive blowjobs in the back stairwells. You know, the usual.
I’m teaching persona poems, which I love to teach because kids nowadays have no boundaries. No one’s told them yet that their imaginations will grow numb then wither into further numbness. They still got dreams, dammit.
So after I explain the concept of stepping into other shoes and writing from other perspectives, after I assure them that they can take on the persona of absolutely anything, one of the cagey little imps comes up with a poem in the voice of a penis.

04.29.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4)

Kenneth Goldsmith

The End of History

Patricia says “I want to be a major poet!” I do too. What does ambition mean in this field, arguably a field of diminishing returns?

04.27.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5)

Emily Warn

NBCC Campaign to Save Book Reviews

No, it isn’t a rumor that the book review sections of newspapers in LA, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, and more are being axed or shrunk. The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) are beating their keyboards into swords and have launched a campaign to save book reviews. Their efforts are gaining momentum on the Web this week:
The New Book Burning, Art Winslow in Huffington Post
Dramatic Changes in Newspaper Book Reviews, Craig Teicher in Publishers Weekly
NBCC’s campaign series, featuring book review editors and writers on its blog Critical Mass.

04.27.07 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Jeffrey McDaniel

my first poem

After reading Kwame’s entry about his first poem, I decided to dive into that pool.

04.26.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Kwame Dawes

My First Poem: A Fable

The second form block was on the other side of the campus. At age eleven, you arrived at the new school in which the playing fields were green and cared for. There was even a stretch of ground called “Holy Ground” that was out of bounds for anyone but athletes and sportsmen waiting to play, and even then, only the older boys dared to step on Holy Ground. Holy Ground was on the more welcoming side of the school, the side where the First Form Block was. The first form rooms—four of them, were clustered around a late nineteenth century building of wide solid walls with only the latest layer of plaster covering the walls. The floors were wooden, with cracks and narrow crevices—there was no sheen on the floor, polishing had stopped years ago, now the floor was a dull stained stretch. First Form seemed safe in a school of boys as old as nineteen or twenty. The second form block was close to the Third Form and the Fourth Form cluster of buildings, some more modern than others.

04.24.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Rachel Zucker

Everything I know about teaching I learned from West Side Soccer

Yesterday my husband attended the certification training for assistant coaches for the U8 (under eight) division of West Side Soccer League (a division of the American Youth Soccer Organization). I was a U6 referee last Fall but I’m too damn big to fit into the yellow and black striped shirt let alone waddle up and down the field, so hubby has to meet our volunteer commitments this Spring. Here is one of the jewels he brought home from the meeting:

04.24.07 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)