March 2011
13 posts
Teaching
I had never read DFW’s essay “Consider the Lobster.” I loved it. Most of my students did not.
1 tag
View from the upstairs window
I saw something from the corner of my eye,
working and yet unfocused, for a moment,
by the sudden disappearance of what I didn’t know
until that moment existed. I ran down the stairs
to the back door, out into the empty field,
already harvested, nothing but grain stubble.
The pheasants startled up, their wings clapping
a warning. And a door closed. A door.
1 tag
Short Talk on Walking Backwards by Anne Carson
My mother forbade us to walk backwards. That is how the dead walk, she would say. Where did she get this idea? Perhaps from a bad translation. The dead after all, do not walk backwards but they do walk behind us. They have no lungs and cannot call out but would love for us to turn around. They are victims of love, many of them.
Too long
It has taken me nearly a decade of higher education to break down and finally do it: I now have a daily planner, in black. I don’t know which part of that sentence is the scariest.
Ruefle →
The I/eye/aye of capital? →
“…perhaps our individualistic, workaholic society would be more rooted in community and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of ourselves as a small ‘i’ with a sweet little dot.”
