Read-In

When I was an undergrad long, long ago, I was a featured poet at a poetry reading sponsored by the UWF English club. I read with (I think four) other poets. I think I read three or four poems, mostly love poems. One of them was something like this (I'm trying to remember it--I'm paraphrasing it wrong. There was more art to it... another stanza, I think, so I'm NOT doing it justice).

Long ago,
our love
sat up once, sighed,
and died.
And nobody noticed
until summer came
and it started
to smell.

It got quite a laugh at the event, but it was true, too. Kind of Dorothy Parker wit-like. (I don't claim to be as GOOD as Dot, but I tried.)

It had a little bit more to it. It was written in response to the high school boyfriend tormenting me that I never wrote any "happy" poems. So I wrote a funny one, making fun of him. :) Revenge.

Anyway. Today, I spent the afternoon working on the Black Literature Read in I'm sponsoring/organizing on my campus. I had auditions and got three great students to read during what should be the busiest time, a time on our campus called "Common Hour" when all students have no classes so they can be on campus for events like this one.

I made a cool flyer with the students on it, and posted about fifty of them around campus. I happened to run into one of the students by the elevator where I had just posted his picture. He was looking at it, thinking "Hmmmm. I know that guy."

Last week, someone I don't know who, took down a bunch of my flyers. They had to go out of their way to do so. It annoys me. If you're no into the idea, don't come to the event, but don't ruin it for everyone else!

But I still have the flyer from long ago and far away with my little old name on it. It meant a lot to me, even though, at this date, it's the only reading of my own work I've done. (Someday. When I grow extra hours in the day).

I think it's going to be fun. A bunch of students are really excited, and I hope it works. Since minority American lit is one of my many, many specialties (the "many" is an exaggeration) I figure I'm the main person who is going to organize this kind of thing around here.

It would be awesome to have more things like this, though. We have student events like "foam parties" but I don't think there are enough cultural ones-- there just never are, and it really does take up a lot of time & energy & thought.

So that's been my thing this week. How are you doing?

Coming Soon

For the January= Spring Semester, my classes are all going to be required to blog entries about the literature we're reading. Other things, too, since I'm going to be teaching a "how to be a college student" class.

What does that mean for you, gentle readers (if there are any of you out there...)?

I'm going even MORE public. This blog will be totally an extension of my work life, my teaching persona. I doubt a lot will change. I'll probably try to control most of my whining. If you're just dying to see me in a less public way and don't know my myspace persona, let me know & I can send you there, but I don't blog there much anymore, either. Perhaps I will do more now that I'm mmore out of the virtual closet.

It also means a student or two might show up on this blog to comment, since they'll be able to see it in the dashboard. Just a heads up. You don't have to behave any differently, really. It's all good in the hood.

Accomplishing...stuff

So today, a student who I had in the first semester comp course a couple of semester ago, who is in my second semester class this time, came by all happy because he had made such a good grade on an essay which he ROCKED. It was so nice to see the energy and light on his face. And honestly, he really worked hard to get that good grade and it SHOWED. It was the best of all 75 papers I graded this week, and the best reading of that particular story I've seen, probably ever. I was waaaay impressed, and said paper will join my stack of "examples of students who rock" for future classes. They probably won't believe it was a real student, it's written so well.

And it just really was cool to see how happy he was, how much he enjoyed the paper and doing well, and how he could very well be someone who, if in a class with a prof who didn't "get" him, wouldn't do as well. On the whole, in the past, he has tended to over write his essays and he really worked hard to fix that. I was soooo happy to see him. So that feels great.

Then I got stuff done that I've been trying to do for weeks. Cleared out about half of my inbox for email (something really hard to catch up on, too). Picked up kids and we went for a ride and then had a good dinner and now they're vegging out with Winnie the Pooh while I look to see what movies are shooting in Shreveport.

Apparently, the horrible traffic we got stuck in was the result of a movie that's filming here with Edward Norton called Leaves of Grass. It makes me wonder if it has anything at all to do with the Walt Whitman poem, but given the car and traffic issue, I suspect it doesn't. But it was still super cool! We saw this car on the bridge and it was literally on its back end, standing straight in the air. I thought "holy crap how did someone manage to do that?!" Well, apparently, it was the movie set! Cool. It makes sitting in that ridiculous traffic jam a little bit less of a pain in the butt. We got to daydream about buying and restoring these really cool industrial loft-style buildings that are near the freeway. They're these cool brick buildings and they'd make really cool places, but they'd cost TWO arms and two legs. But it's a nice daydream. We also drove past the other movie shooting here, accidentally, on the way home. It's a Bruce Willis directed (I don't know if he's acting in it) movie, and it's really fun to see those things. Shreveport doesn't have a million of those like some big cities and so I find it very interesting when it happens. It's not that I'm starstruck (although I think I once saw Jack Black at Target... and didn't say hi because I just thought "Hey, that dude looks just like Jack Black".... never entered my mind it might BE him). But it's just kind of fun.

And I had the chance to possibly have our house used in a location filming for the movie Queen Sized about a year ago. It was in the middle of a crazy time in our lives and I didn't pursue the "note on the door" scouting us. But I kind of wish I had! Maybe we'll get another chance one day.

Anyway. This has turned into a fangirl rant and I gotta get over it. Maia wants to know "what I'm doin?" Writing, sweetie. And now, hugging you. :)