Live to tell.

I've been saying for the last several weeks or maybe for the last several decades that I can't think about the thing that's happening in, like two weeks, because I can only think about the three things that are in my face (when I say this, I like to hold my own hand one inch in front of my face, with my fingers spread out like an immoveable wall) right now, and when those three things are out of my face, then the next three things can take their place. It's sort of shocking to me (a) how much I like retelling this little demonstration of my state of mind/life, complete with hand gesture, and (b) how entirely apt it is.

So the three things that are in my face right now:

(a) grading
(b) contracts for visiting writers next year, and all that that implies (and believe me: it implies a lot)
(c) there are actually several things vying for the (c) spot on my list of three things (hand in front of my own face) currently in my face right now, I can't quite decide which one is in-my-face-iest. Which may be a little problem, come to think of it.

Well, the good thing is that teaching is finished for the semester and the academic year. I do have a few students who don't quite seem to realize this, which is probably my own damn fault because I have let a few of them have a little bit of extra time, which one or two of them seem to think means I am still teaching the class. Which I am not. I am not teaching anymore, even if I'm letting people turn things in one, two, three days late. Still: teaching, as an activity that involves me actively instructing people, is over. OVER, students.

And the other good thing is: today I could actually feel myself unwind. I read the paper without the strong feeling that I needed to be done with it already so I could move on to tasks. No. Today my tasks included:

• talk to my daughter in Scotland
• go down to Orem with my daughter and grandkids to visit my folks
• buy excellent cheese at Trader Joe's and also ranunculus and stocks and sweet William, which are currently making my house smell beautiful
• plant a heliotrope
• take Bruiser for two walks with the historian
• watch the penultimate episode of The Good Wife, which, no matter how it has let me down, and in fairly significant ways, I am still finding riveting

So that's my Sunday. If you were keeping track, I wrote 26 poems for National Poetry Month (some of which I did not post, but I did write them). Perhaps I will write four more poems, belatedly, in much the same spirit as my students, who are still turning in late activities and assignments and heaven knows what all. But at least I will not email and ask you to teach me how to write them.

In conclusion:

Until now.

All  through the fall, I've found myself with a crippling bout of longing. My friend Gail says you should identify your core desired feelings. Elation. How about that. Or exhilaration?

Our trip to Scotland was, this last time, magnificent. When we came back, we had to dive into school like doing a turn at the far end of the pool. A poorly executed turn, where you predictably but not purposefully inhale a lot of water. And you still have to swim, sputtering and coughing.

Not rage. Not can't come up for air. Not who do I think I am, anyway?

Last night, after a series of student conferences--online, at night--where half (not an exaggeration) of the students did not show up, I came into the bedroom where the historian was half resting, half watching television. Bruiser was, of course, aligned, both in purpose and in body, with these activities. I got under the covers, just to, you know, relax. I don't like being stood up by students for evening online appointments. It feels rude and maybe a little weasely and it invites all the thoughts, like, what am I doing wrong, that my students can't remember their appointments? and why am I so dumb, that I allow this to happen? and so on. Unproductive. Anxiety, and rage, producing.

But last night, I let it go. I thought, I did my part. And I did. I was prepared for those conversations and the students have my written feedback. I thought, time to breathe.

And I did.

This morning on my way to work, I started to think about a poem I'm nominally working on. I came up with a line and a half, and I thought, I'm on my way in. And now is the time I should be writing. And although always is the time I should be writing, I felt just a tiny taste of a core desired feeling. I felt elated.

Experiments in the space-time continuum: an essay.

Today, I was in the basement of a library.

Today, sometimes I waited for people who never arrived.

Today, I moved across space and time to my office, and from there to the ether.

Today, I talked to people in real time, but sometimes I was talking to them through a laptop.

Today, I walked speedily, I did flies, presses, rows, pull downs, curls. And then I drove on west and southbound roads to eat at home, spaghetti and salad and toast. And then I drove on still further south and further westbound roads to talk to students in an atrium on another campus.

Today, I waited for a student who did not arrive, and, while waiting, I watched, smelled, and listened to the dinner of a young man sitting near me. It was a hamburger and fries, extracted from a paper bag. It smelled savory and delectable. His manners were not polished.

When I said to my computer, Can you hear me? to an invisible student, the hamburger and fries guy took that as a signal to wad up the paper remains of his meal and leave, which: good. A redolence of grease and salt trailing behind him.

After my experiment in limits or the lack thereof, I came home, I ate ice cream and peaches, I watched Modern Family reruns. When I got up from the bed to get rice crackers, I was a teensy bit dizzy.

Tonight at ten, we walked the dog under a brilliant half moon. It is officially autumn.

The people, today it became clearer that there must be limits. That transitory dizziness may be metaphorical, or perhaps it is not. It may be existential.

Oh, I have a big plan for better limits and less vertigo. It starts in January.

For now, I plan to continue two-a-days because they make me feel like I'm choosing something and like my schedule is not wholly running me.

For now, I plan not to do any more stints at other campuses for the benefit of students who may or may not sign up, or who, having signed up, may or may not show up.

For now, I plan to get one more hour of sleep a night.

For now, I plan to keep planning, because I might be able to carve out another little concession from my tyrant of a schedule.

For now, I plan to collapse just a little bit. And then, to take a breath when I stand up from the collapse.

And a chaser of Apple Jacks.

There's a box of Apple Jacks in my cupboard, hanging out with the more sober cereals, as well as a slumped bag of frosted flakes that are out the door, come to think of it, as soon as I write this blog post. The Apple Jacks have almost concluded their performance. Which is to say, when I had a small bowl tonight, dessert-like, after dinner, and then a judicious sprinkling more to finish up the milk, I thought, they're almost gone, thank God, and then felt a small pang because they're almost gone.

But let me start at the beginning.

Tonight, I had my first two online orientation sessions of the semester. I logged in, clicked Share My Screen and let Adobe Connect do its fiddly little thing, uploaded my pdfs, and waited. I waited, and went to the inbox and refreshed it to see if there were messages--none--and went back to the chatroom. No one. So I checked this and that, read a great article about Serena Williams by Claudia Rankine, and another great article from The Guardian about the North Coast 500, a road along the northerly coast of Scotland, which sounds like I better do it. And another article about how if you eat late at night--which they defined, variously, as after 3 p.m. (! what?) and 4:30 p.m. (come on!)--you are basically doomed. Well, anyway, that's what I got out of it.

I refreshed. Nothing. Chatroom? No one.

Until about halfway through the putative session at which no one was in attendance, or so I thought. Then, I got two messages from different students that were all, Hey, we're in the chatroom--where are you?

Adobe Connect! Your fiddly business!

I should have closed and reloaded. Live and learn. Anyway, I hustled over to the chatroom where the students were, and we had a highly efficient orientation. I scrolled back through the chat--they had been talking about the favorite authors! What good students!

While I was refreshing and checking on the no one that was in my chatroom, whilst the everyone was elsewhere, that was when I got up and got that bowl of Apple Jacks. I finished it before I realized what was what with my chatroom fail, which, good thing, because once I had to hustle to the real chatroom and start orienting, I needed both of my hands and also my mouth. I had no time for Apple Jacks!

Why do I have Apple Jacks at my house? Because when my son and his family were here this summer, we had some Apple Jacks. I bought a box because it would remind me of summer and childhood and the mornings when children at breakfast at my table, when sweet cereal tasted like freedom.

Open letter to my Canvas course.

Dear my Canvas course,

I have published you. Let's be clear about that. So you're on the books. You're legit. You're actually happening. Regardless of how I feel about the first day, orientations, projected schedules, updating due dates, and all that these imply.

Metaphor: it's like being at the top of a precipice, with a sled in tow. A rickety, haven't-used-it-in-a-while sled. Needs a little WD-40 sled. And I'm looking at my sled, then looking at the slope--whence I will very soon be sledding down--and I think, what the hell. And then I get on and shove off.

Wheeeeeeeeee! And whatnot.

Am I still jet lagged? Why do you ask?

I'm pretty sure we're going to have fun, my Canvas course, but right now, I am holding on for dear life and starting the hurtle down the mountain, and I still really really need some more sleep.

Just keep it together, will you? I'm not sure if I'm talking to myself or to you, my Canvas course, and right now I'm not sure if I can tell the difference.

filled with undecidability,

htms

The unbearable tristesse of grading.

Not that I'm actually grading. Not at all. I'm getting ready to grade. This means making contact with a handful of students who have been there all along, who have contributed in various ways to the class, and yet who have, somehow, managed not to turn in enough major assignments that the inescapable conclusion is--as in I cannot escape it--they will not pass. So: emails. You know, and then waiting for emails.

Perhaps you might say why are you doing this now? why didn't you do this weeks ago? At least these are questions I am asking myself. To which I reply, to myself: I was doing some things. Important things. Or anyway, I don't know, stop yelling!

It's kind of noisy around here, all the yelling, while I'm getting ready to grade.

Today was the last--the very last--day of teaching this semester. My poetry class met and we assembled our beautiful folios and then had a reading. When the students had a broadside from every other student, signed, I watched for a moment as they assembled and reordered their collections. It was perfect. It was everything I hoped for--the work of their colleagues collected in their hands.

This is why, at the moment, I feel a little sad. In fact, I had to lie down for a moment, that's how blue.

The way it works is, you prepare to grade (by grading, if you know what I mean). Then, you face the actual shape and scale of the reading ahead of you. You pace yourself (this is the luxury way of grading--if you are rushed, then your pace is a rush, and it is horrible and I do not recommend this rush strategy). You realize that you will be reading for a few days. You settle in for the pleasures (and frustrations and despair) of it all.

Essentially, you grade your way out of the melancholy, and that is good. It's the way of teaching, and it's a good way.

I am not at the moment on the 'having surmounted the sadness' side of grading. Also, I am still in need of more sleep. Tomorrow, I believe, it begins. And in a few days, I will feel better. If you're a teacher and you're about to grade, you will too.

Accounting.

Today, I put the grommets into twenty three folios.

Wait, let me start again.

My poetry class is producing a publication. I had a vision of it long before we at the Publication Center ever got a press. A Takach etching press, to be exact. My vision was this:

• a collection of broadsides (each student produces one broadside in a class-size edition)
• sometimes these broadsides were tiny (broadside being used loosely in this instance)
• sometimes these broadsides were largish. Close to tabloid size.
• the broadsides would be printed (sometimes in my vision, they were letter pressed) and would have an image on them.
• the broadsides would be gathered and held--bound, in a word--in a portfolio, which would be
• a beautiful piece of heavy weight paper, printed with the title, and tied with some sort of lacing that would 
• lace through both sides of the portfolio.

In all versions of my vision, this publication was exquisite.

I talked it over with my Publication Center people. We all agreed this was doable. We came up with dimensions for the broadsides (slightly smaller than letter size paper) and the portfolio (a tabloid piece of dove-gray medium weight cardstock). 

"How will the lacing go through the paper?" Charlotte asked.

"I don't know. Just, like, holes?" I approximated.

"You're gonna need grommets," said Charlotte, with certitude and firmness. We talked about grommets and how that would all work, and it was decided.

"What are you going to lace it with?" Charlotte and Kat asked, on different occasions. 

I thought maybe gray suede lacing, and/or maybe gray satin ribbon.

Kat said, "Maybe the narrowest"--she held her index finger and thumb infinitessimally close--"gray grosgrain ribbon." 

This all sounded good to me.

So excited to finish this project with my poetry students tomorrow! It will contain a class set of broadsides for each writer.

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on May 4, 2015 at 7:03pm PDT

Cut to now. I have visited three different stores in search of the elusive narrowest gray grosgrain (or satin, either would do) ribbon, and gray suede lacing. Here's what I have instead:

• satin and grosgrain ribbon, gray, but not the narrowest--medium narrow
• black suede lacing
• lovely soft gray wool yarn
• the very narrowest black grosgrain ribbon
• sheer gray ribbon, also not the narrowest.

Also, today I put in four grommets per publication by hand. The people, I brought a hammer and a nail to work. A hammer. (and a nail.) Putting in grommets is sort of meditative, if by meditative you mean using a hammer and also wondering if you're even doing the damn thing right at all. Or what.

But it is going to be beautiful, I swear. That part of the vision is coming true. Also the part where we have doughnuts from Fresh Donut & Deli. Doughnuts are always the refreshment of choice in my visions.

Notes on teaching: the first week.

The first week--exhausting. Also? a little bit of a thrill ride.

I can get away with an incomplete schedule--the day to day--because this is a face to face class. I said this to myself on Sunday, when one class, my online class, was mostly finished, but the other, the face to face, was not quite mostly finished.

If I have three weeks ready to go? I can start with that.

(Online, though? No. An incomplete schedule is just courting disaster.)

If, however, you are teaching face to face, you have the luxury of advancing your partially-made weekly schedule as if it were a  not-quite-hypothesis--a teaching hunch, one that requires more information to fully flesh out before it can become itself: a fully articulated question, the answer to which can only be obtained by the procedure of the whole class being taught.

And thus it was that I found myself today in my office, engaged in the slow, patient work of imagining how the projects I'm asking them to do might connect with the readings I've found (and the ones I have still to find), how the readings might connect with the poems they write, how their sensibilities might intersect with the sensibilities of the writers I'm assembling, one by one, for them to meet and converse with.

I've been thinking about how writing--composing--can, for me, edge into a flow state in which I lose track of time and get entirely absorbed in the problems and the pleasures of the task. Is it possible to teach that? Do my students in any writing course find themselves in it? In a required composition course, for instance? Can I teach them to recognize it and to let themselves go with it, if they verge on it? Can this be coached or taught?

Today, I found myself in my office, the door almost closed, the light coming in from the east. It was late morning, and I was entirely absorbed in the problems and pleasures of the task: assembling a teaching schedule, losing track of time, creating what I hope will be apt sequences and intelligible leaps, the premises of which will unfold over time and be achieved both in the process and in the arrival.

And then, I went to class.

Writing? I guess.

I have never, and I mean NEVER, done the thing where you say to the kids you're teaching, "I'm going to do the writing with you this semester."

But lo and behold! yesterday, I heard myself say these very words to the students in the room. 

That's thirteen poems, maybe I can write thirteen poems in fifteen or so weeks? 

I did say on my "GOALS 2014" page that I created with my very own hands, digitally, so, you know, digital hands, where were we? right: I did say on my GOALS 2014 page that I would

so, you know. I guess I'm writing a poem, after I leave you here--you, ghostly reader, whom I sense only from your comments and your Facebook "likes" and your, you know, page hits--after I leave you here, a poem with 

Guy holding two cigarettes in his hand in the elevator, one for him, one for his girlfriend
Every story a ghost story
Murmurous
Cannot use EVER
2 of my less brooding poems
Did my faith exile me or did I exile myself from my faith? What does exile mean? Who are the exiles?

in it, maybe, but definitely

a piece of fruit or vegetable; a window, door, portal; a machine or mechanical device; a famous person, real or fictional (not the 20^th c.); an exotic place; something from science—theory, principle, name, or idea; a means of transportation; a part of the body; an item, saying, event, etc. from another culture; an idea from philosophy or religion or belief system.

because that is the assignment. So I guess I am going to go write a poem. Right...now.

The ups, the downs, the ins, the outs, the whatnot.

I'll let you do the categorizing:

• the fact that several students told me they appreciated the opportunity to consult with me
• the fact that all my students remembered and attended their conferences
• the fact that I was prepared for all the conferences today
• the fact that I completely forgot a meeting that I had at 3 p.m.
• the fact that I ate an apple with cheese for lunch
• the fact that I ate Starbucks oatmeal AGAIN for breakfast because I am obsesssssed with it
• the fact that my colleague said I looked tired today
• the fact that I did, in fact, look tired today
• the fact that I am grading, still, at 11:25 p.m., in bed
• the fact that the historian gave a great lecture at the downtown library tonight
• the fact that we got french fries on the way home
• the fact that the Jazz won, but it won't matter

The fact that there was sun. The fact that there was no snow. The fact that I'm in bed, even if grading. The fact that I'll be getting up before the sun for more conferences. The fact that I will be eating Starbucks oatmeal again for breakfast, because I am obsessssssssed with it.

After Labor Day.

After Labor Day is when school should actually begin, in my opinion. Who are the early school starters kidding? It is too hot to learn in August. The early starters should take a little lesson from my childhood, when school started in, like, the tenth week of September. I remember going to the beach after Labor Day, the people. Fall, before school starts, is delicious. The heat actually feels precious, like a wonder, when you can feel it going.

The truth is, the early starters don't get it: school doesn't start for real until after Labor Day. We may be "attending." We may be "teaching." But until it feels like fall, we are not learning. Neolithic Man did not go to school until the fall. Check the fossil evidence.

Sigh.

Well, here are a few things that lifted my heart today on our last bike ride of the Labor Day holiday:

cormorants & cows

osprey, right overhead

canal

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The story of the course.

Listen up students:

When I first started teaching English 2010, it was long, long ago. I taught in rooms with spare engine parts, which is to say, where they taught people about engines and so forth. When I first started teaching English 2010, it smelled of automotive oil and metal that had once been very hot but which had subsequently cooled.

Later, I got a new book. Then another new book. The first new book was so short-lived that it could not be called an era. It was, perhaps, an incident. But the second new book lasted a very long time.

(NOTE: I think I might be forgetting some parts of this story. But a good story doesn't tell all the parts, because all the parts are not equally important.)

To reprise: The second new book was an era. It was an era with periods within it. The periods were called "first edition," "second edition," and "third edition." When the era came to a close, it was sad for me, although not, perhaps, for everyone. In the passing of this era, I felt the first inklings of the course's extinction.

Then came the era of decline. Whose fault was it? Whose fault is global warming? Everyone's and no one's. And at the point of decline, it seemed sensible to ask: what about the bright line dividing this from that, these from those, what I have right here versus the stuff over yonder? Why bother defending the lines, in these dark times? Why not say, creative isn't so different from expository? And who's going to stop me?

And that, students, is how we ended up here, with the course, English 2010, in front of us. Shiny! It is full of concepts and practices, and soon we will test the seams and joins of it to see if they hold or if they pop. Won't that be fun?

Sincerely--I'm not sure how this turned into a letter, but cheers!

Your faithful instructor.

Edging closer.

Over the past few days, I've responded to questions from some creative writing students about the place of creative writing in the world. I also responded to an e-mail or two about curriculum, which led me to first find, then to take a look at my notes from May of this year--that's right, two and a half months ago, like an eon--notes from a meeting where I started to imagine what I wanted my composition courses to look like this fall. That's right, a month from now. Less than a month.

But who's counting.

I'm also at a point where my own creative projects seem to share a margin with work I hope my students will do. I worked some more on my photo essay, which is shaping up pretty nicely. It involves images from the Scotland trip and some thoughts about ruins and ruination. I'm also using photos of the shacks from our Joshua Tree/Morongo Valley trip from last year.

It's great to work with those images and to bring my disparate thoughts about these abandoned and collapsing structures together into a series of statements with something like a coherent through-line. This is something I would like my students to be able to do, with or without the photos. Same with my video essay about feminism--assembling primary and secondary research materials, ordered and juxtaposed in a way that creates a nascent argument, with the writer's own point of view to frame and shape all of it. With or without video, voiceover, ambient noise, or a soundtrack.

But it's okay that my projects are verging on demos for what I want my students to do. It's what teachers do--find a connection between their own projects and what they hope their students might be able to do. Yep, that's me, a teacher. Getting ready to teach, although well in advance of actual syllabus making.

Today, this came to me as a recommendation from the UK Amazon:

Amazon.co.uk, you've got my number.

Artifact.

So that, above, is how it went down today--we all made broadsides, and talked about the history of broadsides. I'm having the same, lucky experience I had last time I taught this class, which was also the first time: massive nerves before each three-hour session, and something close to exhilaration afterward. This time, I have the luck of having Dr. Write and another colleague, Kati Lewis, with me as compatriots.

After teaching, I came home, but not before losing my cell phone at Target (found and retrieved). I hung up a bunch of clothes I had heaped in the closet-in-all-but-name that is, essentially, the rest of our bedroom, and took a short nap. We saw A Dangerous Method tonight, which I loved.

Somehow, this weekend I need to squeeze in about three times more stuff than I have actual time to do it in. Huzzah for expandable weekends!

Tomorrow we will be talking about and making broadsides in Publication Studies.

from the National Library of Scotland (1821)

from the National Library of Scotland (1719)

from the Poetry Foundation For the Fridge Archive 

from the Library of Congress Printed Ephemera Collection

from On the Walls and In the Streets: American PoetryBroadsides from the 1960s, James D. Sullivan

Possibly a little more than I bargained for.

Finicky, finicky, I am fussing over the very last of my syllabi, since the very last of my classes, Publication Studies, meets for the first time tomorrow, and God knows if there were even more time to flutter and flap and quack around that syllabus, I would take it. But just now, having added the last (ha!  no way!) reading and activity and event to the schedule, I am reckoning with the fact that, right around April, there will be a lotsa stuff a-happening, such as the new issue of Folio, my last as faculty advisor; the chapbook launch; consultations a plenty, since in December I decided in a brilliant flash that all of my students--all!--would do better if I consulted with each of them twice in the semester instead of once; and portfolios to review; and drafts to read at the very last minute; and so on and so forth.

This explains why--I'm owning up to this fact--I saw the opportunity to not be in my office this afternoon. Most Thursdays I will be in the Writing Center and then at meetings. But the Writing Center is quiet until next week, and I had no meetings, so I talked to the young poets about devices of sound, and we read the hell out of a little Bob Hickok poem, and then I checked my e-mail one more time and hightailed it outta there lickety split, to come home and finicky finicky fuss around with that last syllabus yet one more time (if by "one more time" we mean "all afternoon").

p.s. I love my delicious account. I was able to harvest a kajillion interesting links from it today as I flarfed around with the course. Yay social bookmarking!
p.p. s. College daughter...back at college. Christmas is over! We opened all the presents!

...and the teaching begins.

I know this, because last week I received several e-mails from a student, one of which said, "Still waiting for that syllabus, so I can get started." Before the semester even had officially begun, the people. I am giving myself "good teacher" points for not responding in a tart tone.

Today I published that course, and there are responses to the first discussion, so. You know. Teaching.

But I am actually looking forward--so much--to starting the semester. It's possible that I am cramming too much stuff into pretty much all of my courses. I want my students to have it all! All the learning! So we'll see how that goes.

All that remains is for me to pick an outfit. And, you know, make my notes. Like, prepare.

p.s. In my files, I found a letter I wrote to my students in an online version of the poetry class I'm going to teach tomorrow. I really loved that class. Here's some advice I gave them that I've decided I should remember myself:

"It’s all choices, and [poetic] forms give you some more choices, maybe.  Anyway, I hope that you feel your poetic means have increased as a result of the work you’ve done in the class.  As I’ve observed your work, it seems to me that each poet has done some new and surprising things as a result of these forms.  That’s something worth cherishing, in my book.

I wanted to give you some advice that’s been hard-won for me.  Maybe you get a head start on your poetic life by my sharing it with you.  Here it is:  take the feedback you get and weigh it in your own mind.  At the end of the day, it’s always still your poem, and you get to decide what happens to your poem.  One more bit of advice:  no one—and I mean no one—gets to decide for you whether you write or not.  Only you get to decide whether you write, and what you write.  You don’t need anyone else’s permission."

Cheers to all my teacher peeps. Knock 'em dead. You know, teach.