30 Poems

I never did write a good poem.  When I was in fourth grade, I got into a haiku phase, and wrote a notebook full of them.  My beloved Mrs. Johnson inked red praise in every margin.

In college, I finally took a poetry writing class with David Clewell, our poet, and fine teacher.  I had gotten into playwriting (and can talk about how the restraint of only writing dialogue is something sestina-like, perhaps) and never had room for an “extra” writing class.  But learning about poetry by writing it, with Clewell, was something each of us did, in turn.  And truly: what I learned there changed how I see language, and changed even how I teach poetry now.

In that entire semester, I wrote probably one poem that is worth anything, and we wrote one a week.  I really believe that anyone who loves poetry should take a class like this– the familiarity we have with song lyrics, and writing short messages, makes us feel that anyone could probably write poetry.  (Untrue.)

My soon to be brother-in-law is a poet, and has taken up an interesting challenge: to write a poem each day this month; he’s blogging them.  I have some friends who really get into Nanowrimo, and some who wouldn’t do that for love or money.

For me, I wrote best when I had consistent criticism, a read-through of a growing play, to hear if the dialogue was true, or if I was veering too on the nose.

I admire the idea of writing a poem a day, of writing something every day, of spending time crafting as one has time, and then saying, “Done, for today.”  I imagine Andrew’s blog growing new poems like those rows of chrysalides, sized tiny to almost-moth.

Draft/timeline

E. cannot sit still.  He cannot stay quiet.  After my first two hours teaching him, I was sure he had some form of verbal and physical Tourette’s.  Some stimulus (which I’m unable to predict mostly) will send him leaping from his seat, across the room, or table shaking, or in and out of closet darting.

He is very likeable, when he’s not driving you crazy.  He loves performing arts.  He’ll see me of a morning, and call out, “Miss!  Do I have you today?!  Acting!  I want to _act_!”

In fact, no group of students will allow him in to do a scene with them.  In fact, he would not be able to sit still with them long enough to prepare a scene.  Somehow, though, when the groups are performing, his body will become still.  He will sneak as close to the performers as possible (often in the cloak closet), crouch on the floor, and cover his mouth, grinning, watching every move and hanging on every word.

He drives his classmates crazy, and angry.  He will not be quiet, even when I’m showing them examples of real sets from the internet, and showing them costumes, and make-up ideas.  He will not sit still, even when I’m telling them about love juice— they will plead with him, yell at him (“Be _quiet!_ I can’t hear her!”) and try to push him into his seat so he’ll stop running around and bothering them.

Once, when I was trying to talk to him–close, telling him one expectation that I thought he could process–he climbed up the radiator and climbed around and above the filing cabinet, to duck a pipe on the other side and run away from me.   He longs to be permitted to leave class to the bathroom, or for a drink of water.  Alas, his advisor will not give him “bathroom tickets,” and so he can never be dismissed.

His classmates have been working on “I Am” poems, and thinking about themselves as part of their community and how they can consider history by checking out their own perspective.  I found this piece of writing in the teachers’ lounge.  It is the longest piece of writing I have ever seen Emmanuel write–the most I’ve gotten out of him ever is one paragraph, not counting the “apology letters” he writes when he is in time out.  (“Dear Miss H.  I am sorry I disrupted the class.  I can contribute to performing arts by ACTING and being good.  I am ready to come back to class and get a Meets for the day.”)

This unfinished essay says so much, and makes me wish I could do more.

“Final Draft/My timeline

One day in 19– of November 26. I was born.  I was born in at 12:37 am I don’t remember anything.

When I turned 1 I learned how to walk and everybody called me cute.  When I turned 2 I learned how to talk a little bit like saying cookie, shut up, mine, and mommy and mama.

When I turned 3 I learned how to eat by myself I was learning how to sribble srabble and spit at the floor and roll on the floor.  When I was 4 I learned how to talk really really good but I stutterd sometimes.

When I turned 5 I learned how to get and sit on the toilet and do my business.  Oh yeah when I was 4 my baby brother Dennis was born.  When I was 5 I went to _____ Elementary school.

When I was 6 I went to 1st Grade I was the student of the month.  When I turned 7 I was in the 2nd Grade I was the High Honor roll and perfect attendence and citizenship.

When I was 8 I was in 3rd Grade that’s when I started to be bad.  When I was 9 I was in 4th Grade and all I got was perfect attendence and I was bad and got suspended 27 times and 6 superintenet.  When I was 10 I was m “

 

 

I don’t know which teacher graded the essay, but all she left was a smiley face, in gray felt tipped pen, in the left margin.

Small thankful

I’ve been traveling a lot, and have a terrible sore throat, and am Monday-of-Progress Reports tired.  But, I wanted to say that I am thankful, because today the kids gave me goosebumps again.

We’ve begun reading the scene between Hermia, Lysander, and Helena. Lysander and Hermia first talk about their love, and needing to leave the laws of Athens, and how love has no straight road. (The kids nodded emphatically to that, which made me smile.)  Then Helena comes in and complains that even though all of Athens claims she’s as fair as Hermia, Demetrius can’t see it. Ederick reads Lysander and wishes to _be_ him, Sarah reads Hermia.  We lose our momentum when the word “bosom” comes up, but get back on track easily enough.

The kids are so great.  They were so willing to give the tricky text a try, and listen to my quick explanations and emphasis, and throw in their own ideas.  And ask, “When Shakespeare says ‘fair’ does he mean smart or hot?”

They read it once, struggling, and then read it a second time. I could hear the blank verse coming out, I could hear them gaining confidence.

Also, here is Ederick’s newest pick-up line: “Hey, Fatima. Why don’t you try out to be the girl who likes Lysander?”

School days

I went from worrying that I wouldn’t have a job at all, to teaching full time and returning to the mad-dash schedule of teaching.  Early to bed, early to rise, extra time given to finding amazing short stories and grading raggedy notebooks full of poems and protestations (“Miss, why did you move my seat today…).

It’s actually the perfect job, although part of me doesn’t want to jinx anything by saying that. 7th grade performing arts!  It’s a long-term subbing position, through this semester, it looks like.  And by that time, I should have all of my certifications up to speed, and hopefully the hiring freeze will be over.  But in the meantime, I’m having the kids do great little freewriting “starters,” read short stories, memorize pieces of “Annabel Lee,” and act out scenes every day.

It’s really hard, the work, the pouring out of all of my energy.  There are still three or so kids I can’t or haven’t yet reached, and their behavior and actions made difficult nuts for me to try and crack each day.

And, the students are so unpredictable.  Remember being 12, at all?  What a crazy time, on the inside, for each of them.  And I can’t figure out, on the fly, from the front of the room or the periphery of their tables, what makes them suddenly cry, stomp away, cry out across the room.  And they are so in the moment, so very literal. If I slip and say, “Anthony, you haven’t written a single thing all hour,” he will rage at the injustice because he has, in fact, written two lines.

I do love grading their notebooks each day, giving them red-inked stars, words of encouragement (“See me after class about how to make your haiku perfect,”) and exhortations to finish assignments they’ve left hanging. Several of them write back to me, questions and notes in the margins.

The very best part of each day, though, is when they’re actually acting out their scenes.  They love it, and it’s easy to keep their attention and behavior on task, because I don’t need to do anything– they are in love with seeing each other perform, and hearing what will happen next.

Oh, Joseph K.

I wrote my undergraduate thesis on physicality in Kafak– and read, for a sweaty, corner-cramped year, all of his works.  (Except for _Amerika_. I’m saving that.)  Oh, the bureaucracy in Kafka, the endless hallways, forms, doorways, misdirections, and missed directions his narrators have to endure.

Today was a Kafka day for me.

There is a “hiring freeze” for schoolteachers in this city. No new teachers (not already in the system) need apply.  I’ve had three principals tell me, wistfully, that I’d be great, they just can’t make a move until the freeze ends.

I think I’ve applied for 64 classroom teaching jobs, and two dozen nannying positions.  For those keeping track at home, I am certified in another state (with reciprocity in this state, during non-freeze times) in grades 5-12 in ELA, I am TOEFL certified, and I was awarded Teacher of the Year in my district.  My PRAXIS scores are out of this world, as are my references: principals say things like, “I wish I’d had an English teacher like Ms. H– things would have been so different for me.”

To no avail.  Finally, a great principal at a great school wants to hire me to teach seventh grade performing arts.  (How awesome a gig is that?!)  He has been fighting HR for two weeks, trying to convince them.  There might be a loop-hole: the regular performing arts teacher is out on sick leave for five months.  Could I be a long-term sub?

One would think so.  In the past 48 hours, I’ve been offered the job, then told it wasn’t possible,then told to send my SSN–quickly–and finally asked to bring certain paperwork to the school ASAP.  The layers of red tape boggle my mind.

I walked to the school today, with my teaching certificate and PRAXIS scores and transcripts and references in my bag, as if they did any good.  No one can officially hire me.  I thought about Kafka’s narrator in _The Castle_, climbing staircases, watching the snow fall, listening at doors, and trying in vain to make connection with someone in the castle.  In the loveliest (and most memorable to me) scene, he picks up a phone extension.  Instead of even hearing a dial tone, he only hears the far-distant sounds of children laughing.  The “man upstairs” cannot be reached.

The principal has a good idea– a way to get me into the school and keep me.  I resist saying too much, or even thinking about it– I am loathe to count my chickens.   Next Tuesday, I will take my paperwork “downtown” and try to get processed.  Two days after that, if I am “in the system,” I can begin teaching.

Can I digress– perhaps boast?– for a moment, to highlight my frustration? I’ve taught adults in Prague, beginner speakers with no English at all.  Children in Haiti, in Creole. Kindergartners in a housing project, “gifted” suburban sophomores and seniors in high school, and all range of middle school: tutoring in math, grammar, Shakespeare, and history.  I don’t _want_ to teach in a private school, where certification wouldn’t matter.  I _believe_ in public schools, whole-heartedly.  Can someone help a teacher out?  Make smooth the way?  Show me the secret passage past the myriad front desks, up to the room where I can get my golden ticket to teach?

I said ruefully to Matt today, “Who knew my undergrad studies would have prepared me so well for real life?”

But I am hopeful.  Tuesday, I will do whatever it takes.  Come a few more days, hopefully I will be planning drama and performance with 100 or so kiddos.  Wish me luck!

the Royal Trees of Riverside Park

Yesterday, I babysat Louisa, one of the little girls from my Sunday school class–I’ve been teaching her in Sunday school for three years now, since she was three. I babysit only occasionally, when my work schedule allows.

We did lots and lots and lots, but in the afternoon, she wanted to play soccer in Riverside Park. She even changed into her complete soccer kit to do so.  She told me the rules, and I guarded her increasingly-getting-wider goal area.  She gleefully escaped, sometimes scoring one point, sometimes two, and sometimes three.  (I don’t know how scoring actually works in soccer, but that sounded reasonable to me.)

We lay in the grass to rest, and she said, “Let’s tell a story.”  Louisa began by telling me the story of the tortoise and the hare.  (Interesting that in US English, we never use those words, save for in that story, which even little children know.)  I made up a story for Louisa, inspired by the way the blue sky looked like lace through the green-to-yellow shuddering leaves above our heads.

“Once upon a time, there was an ancient and wise king.  A dragon searches for him every night.  To escape from the dragon, he decided to turn into a tree. That tree there– see how silvery?  That is the wise and ancient king.  Every night, the dragon walks slooowwllly through the park, looking for the king, but he never finds him.

The dragon is purple and red, with golden scales.  He is very ferocious, but not very smart.”

Occasionally, I stopped, and we’d think about the bit I’d just told.  Then, Louisa would say, “Tell more.”

“There is also a royal empress, and she has loved the ancient king for many centuries.  She is brilliant and brave.  Her love for the king is so deep that she also chose to become a tree–she’s that tree there.  See how their branches go up together? They’re holding hands.  If you come here to the park on a summer night, and listen very, very carefully, you can hear them murmuring–they tell wisdom and love for each other.”

“Is that true?  Like for real life?” Louisa demanded.  I said, “It’s story true.” “Tell more,” she said.

“Every night, the dragon walks through here– he’s searching for a secret, but only the king knows where it is.  (It’s deep inside the big library, but the dragon will never know.)  You can see the gold scales glitter in the moonlight, and it would give you the shivers.

Once, a brilliant young girl came sailing up the river on a royal ship, all the way from China. She had heard of the wise king and empress brilliant and brave, and wanted to meet them.  She had long black hair covered with emeralds, and her cloak gleamed with rubies.  Her ship sailed silently up the river, landing right there.

When she came into the park–she was such a smart little girl–she stood very still, and listened very carefully.  In that way, she knew right away which trees were the royal king and empress.”

“She becomes a tree too!” Louisa said.

“Yes, the young girl–a princess, really–decided to become a tree, too.  Which tree is she?  Yes. Oh, they are wise and kind, and will live long, good lives. They can turn back into humans if they like, but they have good lives here in the park, too.”

After the story, we played it out.  A dried leaf with turned up edges can be a bed if you put it turned-up edges up, or a very good table if you put it down turned-up edges down.  We found good blades of grass for the king, empress, and princess.  You know how sometimes leaves dry full of tiny holes, looking like lace?  Those kind of leaves became skirts for the empress, and a torn leaf rumple was a cloak for the king.

Tiny squares of bark were plates for the table, and books, and pillows.  Slender, tiny twigs were serving pieces.  The royal trio ate breakfast, and slept, and talked about royal and beautiful things they knew.

And then we played some more soccer.

Hagia

St. Lucy, outside of an elementary parish school in the Bronx.  Interestingly, she has her eyes here; often, she’s shown holding her own eyes on a platter, referring to her martyrdom.

St. Francis of Assissi, across the doorway from St. Lucy.  I’m not sure why they’re flanking the same entrance, as Clare is the bosom friend of Francis.  I love his eyes.  I climbed up a pedestal to get this close to his face, and the difference from this proximity and how he looks from the street is so striking.  I was abashed to be so near him, to see his face so intimately.

St. Anthony of Padua, somewhere in the East Village.  He quite looks like the young wunderkind scholar and brilliant doctrinal mind he was, doesn’t he?  All cool, and a bit proud if you ask me.

Our Lady, on the Upper West Side.  Recent pilgrims had given her a fresh head-dress, and new blooming flowers for her to hold.

A side note– here in contemporary times, we see Mary looking down as a sign of humility. In the East, and certainly in Byzantine times, she looks down because she is a fine lady of nobility, and we are commoners– a noble lady would never look a plebe in the face.  I personally prefer the modest, downturned face to mean humility, but it’s interesting–as a young woman–to consider the other option.  And the extension of the argument– one needn’t necessarily be shamefaced to emulate Mary.  (I do think in this sculpture she’s being meek.  In the icons where she’s being fierce and noble but eyes cast down, she looks much stronger, and much less approachable.)

Kiddos wear a woman out!

This week, I’m doing my drama camp for neighborhood kids at the church where I teach Sunday school.  Last year, I described it in the “death of a pigeon” post.

Today was the first day, and I had clean forgotten how tiring it is to teach/lead children. They have so much energy!  They talk constantly!  They have so many clever questions that deserve and call for thoughtful responses!  They’re quicker than I am, there are more of them than me, and they always go right to the quick of the matter.

Today, we started our papier-mache masks, worked on acting out or displaying lots and lots of different emotions, talked about two Bible stories (Jacob and Esau and Joseph and his brothers), considered how the various characters thought and felt, play-acted them out several times (in costume), made lunch for each other, played outside, learned a new song, and illustrated different emotional scenes.

Everyone at the church is surprised I don’t either make all the lunches, or have a volunteer make them.  But these kiddos are six and seven years old– they can wash grapes, cut bananas, stack cookies (they do it with such care!), make sandwiches, and set the table.  They like it– they like taking the sandwich orders, and working in the “big” church kitchen, and counting how many of everything they need.  Yes, it takes forever– I could do it much faster while distracting them with an activity, but I like them to prepare food for one another.  For me, preparing meals and sitting down to eat with one another is one of the big, _big_ traditions in Christianity.

Tomorrow, hopefully the masks will be dry enough for us to add noses and cut the eyes out, and then paint.  I was talking about adding noses, and Julliana said, “Oh, yeah. So we can smell.”

Verdancy

I read _Schooling_ by Heather McGowan last week– it’s written in a very Joycean stream-of-conscious, no use of quotation marks, shifting point of view style. A young American girl is at boarding school in England; the story covers her immersion into the school, her grief over her mother’s death, her strange (inappropriate?) relationship with a teacher, and her coming of age.

It actually got tiresome after a while, trying to keep track of who was saying what, and which person’s perspective I was following.  This is a shame, because many of the scenes were very beautiful, and very memorable.

One of my favorite parts included as many terms for the color green-running to yellow as I have ever seen in one place. It was enjoyable and curious, reading them, to try and picture each shade, and to imagine the differences in hues.  The colors mentioned included:

luteous, copper, jade, loden, teal, jonquil, barium, turquoise, celadon

The girl’s teacher was giving her a painting lesson, and they were painting a garden– he was encouraging her not to use merely, “green,” calling green a “downward slope to nowhere.”  He was also warning her against plebeian ideas, so I’m not sure I agree with him in whole, but I do like the idea that we ought to think specifically, and to take time to imagine or articulate exactly the shade (or shade of meaning) that we mean.

Find a penny, take a penny

I always pick up pennies.  I can find three or four a day, sometimes.  And often a nickel or dime.  I feel lucky, and I also feel pleased to myself: over the course of a year, I’ll bet I find nearly five dollars in change on the ground.  It’s like a free five dollar bill!

Here in the City, I often see pennies that have been melted/pressed into the pavement of roads– I see them as I cross the street.  I know of a few that I see often.  I sort of wish I could bring a tool, and pry them up, these stuck pennies.  I’m not sure I’d have enough time, though, before the crosswalk light changed.

But this is a post about being thrifty.  I think I am naturally thrifty, but being in grad school accentuated things, because I had less money.  When I was teaching in St. Louis, I had a second part-time job at the mall– I’d go from teaching after-school right to a 5-10PM shift at Crabtree & Evelyn.  Yes, my schedule was crazy and I was often very tired… but when I wasn’t working, I had a deep worry that I _could_ be working, and so I _should_ be working.  These past three years, I’ve had three jobs, in addition to school, in addition to the journal.

But!  It’s not so bad, and I find that the different things I do cross-pollinate each other, and, I feel better when I have enough to make ends meet, and save when I can.

To that end, I don’t like to feel irresponsible with money, and feel good when I find ways to save.  Here are five of my top ways.

1. No paper towels.  None.  I use washable “un-towels” I found on Etsy, and after we hadn’t had them in a while, I really didn’t miss them.  Now, I can’t see why I would spend money on them, only to throw them away.

2. Bar soap.  A year ago, when we moved into our first apartment, I bought a four-pack of Ivory soap for two dollars.  We use a bar on the bathroom sink, instead of the [more luxurious] liquid pump soap.  And! a year later, I still have two bars left.  Back when I used liquid soap, it always needed buying, and it was three or four dollars a time.  The Ivory soap works perfectly, and I think it looks nice in its little white ceramic dish.  And every time I use it, I feel good and thrifty.

3. Cheap shampoo.  I’ve found that while I prefer to use a mid-range brand of conditioner, to really keep my hair from being dry, it doesn’t matter what shampoo I use.  So while I might pay two or three dollars for a conditioner, I look for the 99 cent shampoo.  And now that we’re in the Bronx, I get it for 89 cents. Exciting!

4.  Dried beans.  At one point earlier this year, Matt and I realized how much cheaper bags of dried beans (chickpeas, black, red, pinto, black-eyed peas) are compared to their canned counterparts.  And you get so, so much more!  We had to tinker around with the soaking process, to figure out how long it would take, and how to get the beans to a state where they’d be ready to use.  Now, we always have one or two big bags of “fresh” beans ready in the freezer.  Seriously: dried beans are pennies per serving. We use them to make: chili, nachos, fajitas, frittata, and dips.

5.  I make our own pasta sauce. Again, jars of pre-made pasta sauce are always more than three dollars a jar, and you only get one to two meals from it.  Big jars of crushed tomatoes can be found for right around a dollar.  This past grocery trip, the peeled tomatoes were the ones on sale, so I got them, and just cut them up with kitchen shears.  We have good spices, and so I make a delicious pasta sauce from scratch. And, because those cans are pretty big, we tend to get four meals out of a batch of pasta sauce.  We use it for: pasta, pizza, and calzone.

We have other things we do– we go to museums and free concerts, we go to the Zoo a lot (we get in free with Matt’s Zoo school employee ID), we go to the library nearly weekly, I’ve been cutting Matt’s hair, and I’ve just figured out how to make my own tortilla chips (with corn tortillas that we buy at 50 for 99 cents.)

The really great thing is that we have a wonderful life– we still love good, fancy cheese, bottles of wine on the weekend, and an occasional meal out if we can.  It just feels good to be living below our means.