Wednesday, January 26, 2011


11TH SUICIDE POEM IN NOVEMBER

The next child I won't father we will name
Nomathamba. We will call her Thembi for short
She will be exactly like Pharaoh drew her. She
Will smile several hours each day. Her teeth
Will come on like white Christmas. She will crawl
Into bed with us to see if we
Are fucking. She will never be scared. She will
Speak Xhosa. I will buy her a dog named Mardi Gras
And she will learn what it is to lose something
You love. She will grow up.

___________________________-John Ross

Monday, January 24, 2011

Why does this electrical outlet not work? It worked just a minute ago but now it's not working. In the library. Working in the library, my new pseudo office, caused in part because my censored's censored in town for the last ten days, eleven nights in the beautiful Mission district who was really nice to have around, clean respectful a little female energy to cut the stale smell of passive aggression and dirty dishes delete delete delete edit internet skip ahead impending home stay in a low privacy one bedroom summer cottage three days before the eagle landed. Like the moon or Apollo 7. Ocean's 11 and 12. Crime capers starring attractive men who bankroll progressive social causes with Hollywood schlock.

Yep. It's really nice to work in the library. There is something about being amongst the homeless and those like me with homes who want to get out of them or can't be there that makes it easy to focus. A kind of bed of nails to keep my back straight. Last Thursday I sat down at one of these broad oak tables at 11AM and didn't get up until 7PM. Which was totally weird. No water. No bathroom break. No talking no running or spitting or playing ball. Nope. Just sitting there, doing research on Ph.D programs which lead into emails to program people explaining my situation leading into thinking about teaching and the little essay that appeared that evening. It was weird. Not like a demon had possessed me but I knew that if I got up I wouldn't finish, and after about three I stopped being hungry. Is this cruel and unusual?

At any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate it's the last week of the six week furlough from teaching. Back at it soon, meetings this week, prepping for the semester, finalizing the schedule, which is a word that I've just recently learned to spell: schedule. Not scheduale. But schedule. No a. This is proof that it's possible to learn stuff, that education does have value. Write your congress person. From this week's New Yorker article about Oprah Winfrey's new television channel, 24 hours a day of continuous programming. Oprah says:
I am very much aware of the energy that the television is transmitting all of the time. That's why I don't allow--up until now, I have never allowed it on in my house, unless there was something specific that I wanted to see, because I don't want all that energy coming into my space.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

One of the central questions that has come out of teaching non-traditional students has been how to make writing appeal to a group of people who have typically had little success with writing in the past. A group of people who generally are not strong readers, and generally did not do as well in high school as many of their peers. A group of people where the typical class will range in ages 18 to 35, and contain people from five different countries. They do not have very much in common with each other, much less anything academically in common, such as agreed upon standards or shared skills. Some have written ten page papers and some have trouble with basic grammar. Some read science fiction novels and keep blogs and some get all they need through their friends and television. Some are there to study advertising and some are there to study movie make up; the difference between a fashion designer and a fashion merchandiser or an industrial designer and an illustrator. "Commercial arts" is the banner all these different areas of study fall under, but they each require a particular knowledge and skill set. At the beginning of every course we could not be more different.

As the course moves forward, through introductions, games, lectures and assignments, we begin to get to know each other. This happens through the structure of the class and our shared experiences, as well through all the little asides that come out of being together. I saw a movie last night. Oh me too. What'd you see? Nice shoes what are you eating it smells good and we begin to make friends. Meanwhile something else is happening. We are writing about our lives and what's important to us. Each student takes a risk: what if this isn't good? What if other students laugh at me? What if the instructor fails me? Some risk more and some risk less, but regardless, we are putting ourselves out there in a form that is as unmediated an expression of self as there is: what do you think?

For non-native speakers, this risk involves not just the risk of self expression but the risk of misspeaking.The question stands: what right do you have to be here if you do not even speak the language or understand the culture? While this question is illustrated clearly by the problems that come with mastering a second language (when does one become a master?), its existential root can be found everywhere. For the student who barely survived high school because they were more interested in drawing pictures than preparing for No Child Left Behind, the risk involves years of bad grades and all the memories that come with. What right do you have to be here if you do not even have the most basic of skills? For the student who came back to school after twenty years of office work, leaving stability and self-sufficiency behind for instructors with no time and Facebook obsessed twenty somethings, what right do you have to be here? For the minority student, often the lone representative of their ethnicity in the room, and all the cultural trappings that come with that fact, what right do you have to be with all of these people who don't look like you? For the wealthy who don't have to get jobs but all thier friends do, what right do you have to tell your story when its subsidized by your parents? And for the underpaid teacher who has no idea what he's doing, what right do you have to stand up and lecture? To pass judgment on the quality of work? It goes on and we go through it together.

To come back to the original question, how to make writing matter, is difficult. What motivations would a person have to put into writing when there is so much that surrounds the act of writing before one can begin? It's as if the work load for the non-traditional student is doubled when compared to those who do not have such keenly developed neurosis surrounding the work of writing. Then again, judging by the way professional writers talk about procrastination, it seems like anticipatory dread is part of the act of writing, even for those who have made writing a large part of who they are. Regardless, these students need to work twice as hard to reach their college ready peers. In a more general sense, if writing is an act of self realization, finding words for the thing, the act of naming, like Adam named the animals or parents name their child, this is this, this = this, translating what we feel into words, our most fundamental definition of what it means to be human; it is important work to me. Thus, from here we lift off in hopes that the energy these beliefs provide is enough to push through the doubt.


Monday, January 17, 2011

What is the connection between cats and dogs? People? No, I mean what's the connection between writing whatever and avoiding the question? People? No, I mean what's the connection between writing on a computer and writing in real life like a reality television show or during a war? People? No, I mean what's the connection between being relatively content and the quality of artistic work? Merit? No, I mean cake. Delicious. Like chocolate but not the kind I helped make the other night. Frosting that turned out badly postscript: don't beat whip cream after it has whipped it turns into cheese or butter or chunky liquid. Like toast, how does something change so dramatically with air or temperature or tickets to the circus. Nope. Not really. Trying to write something down but letting the chatter box rule. Not trying too hard to stop it. Where does it come from? Radio in your mind. Legs like dead weight no longer able to swim my lower half bent like the blade of a pocket knife. Jack knife as they say, jack knifed across the highway. Highway to Heaven. Necessary Angel. Okay, back to the mean topic, what's the relationship between contentedness and artistic output? Seems to me that when I'm happy my work gets sloppier, not so worried about quality control. Fine how it is like a poetry student always the idea that it's fine how it is. Original sentiment but the sentiment isn't original. "Pedestrian" was what it was called. Question: Problem: what exactly do I have to show for ten years of working on poetry asides from a few publications? No joy but in the work itself not the world it's for. Double negative stopped to pick my nose. Coherant thought forget it back to work my cat is cute I'm moving out of this apartment at the end of February this is crazy fog is gone whew no to work I go.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

San Francisco is no longer warm or beautiful. But if I turn the lamp on the light bulb gets hot and a little heat comes off. The cats figured this out not me. Three weeks until school starts and I have a list of things I'm working on. I'll spare you. Hard earned time to work on projects. And to stay out of trouble. Plan to see many a movie in the coming weeks. Last night I saw Hadewijch at the Roxy. Six Fifty Monday special. Matinees are also a good idea. I really enjoyed that movie. Here, please enjoy these selected clippings:

60 First Graders, 4 Teachers, One Suspect’s Odd Behavior Born or Made?

“Ewww,” squealed a boy named Ethan when he was told that the class would plant a banana tree later that day. Other children began mimicking the sound, which they had been making earlier. “Ethan, stop it,” said his teacher, Pepe Gutierrez. “I don’t know why you are screaming.”

*

Mr. Ali, 26, continued: “He presented a poem to the class that he’d written called ‘Meathead’ that was mostly just about him going to the gym to work out. But it included a line about touching himself in the shower while thinking about girls. He was very enthusiastic when he read the poem out loud.”

*
Dr. Burt found that, among 289 pairs of male twins, all born in the ’70s, those who exhibited lower levels of antisocial behavior at ages 17 and 20 were more likely to be married by age 29. This she sees as evidence of a selection process, in which well-behaved men were winnowed off while their antisocial buddies were left to the bachelor pad.

Monday, January 03, 2011

Back in one piece. San Francisco is warm and beautiful.