Photo: Unknown artist. I like using it to depict my writing life.For a while, I had a separate blog for teaching. I couldn't reconcile my teaching life with my creative life. I felt I was stuck. Happily, the two parts of my life have come together now. Over the summer, I requested to be switched permanently to the English Department. My request fell on sympathetic ears. What this means is that beginning in the Fall of 2007, I will be teaching literature and creative writing classes exclusively (women's studies occasionally), no freshman composition. This semester things are better already; I'm only teaching one composition section, and there are only nine students. They are a sweet group.
For the last three years, I have been studying poetry. I have been reading autobiographies, biographies, and criticism. As it turns out, this was a very good thing, because one of my first new assignments in my new role as an English Lecturer will be to teach a course on Modern Poetry. All said, the Modern movement in poetry covers a time frame of about eighty years. The precursors are Whitman and Dickinson and the movement ends just after WWII. So this would include Eliot, Pound, Millay, Lorca, Auden, and so forth. So things have come together for me once more. A personal interest has ended up being professional preparation. I still need to do a lot more reading and preparation, of course, but I look forward to it! Something I've been wanting to do for a long time is to study Eliot's "The Waste Land" more closely. Now I have a very good excuse for doing that.
This week in the Angst to Art Seminar, we talked about Lorca's essay on the Duende. The students also submitted their Confessional Postcards, all of which were deeply moving. One nearly moved me to tears. The students are starting to warm up to each other. This is good because in April they will be sharing a personal story about some kind of angst they have experienced.
I will write more about all of this later; right now, I have much grading and preparations to do for next week.
By the way: it is cold outside! We are supposed to get down below zero tonight.
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3 comments:
I've often found that personal interests end up being professional preparation, even if a decade or more happens between the avid reading and researching and the opportunity of the job. Lit and creative writing--sounds like a dream setup!
Preparedness
FOR all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear--
When you are the hammer, Strike.
Edwin Markham
Congrat's on your good fortune! Love this group of poets-
Gretchen
You certainly earned your spot in the English department. (Although I'm glad you were still teaching freshman comp when I was there!) Congratulations!
I remember Modern Poetry being a tough class to get through, because much of the poetry is not the most accessible. I'm sure you'll bring it to life for the students.
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