I don't know if you are doing it on purpose because it's acceptable or if you are making fun of others who do it and that is a critique. If it is a critique it's not a very well thought out critique since most people who pay attention to you don't get it. Even the more thoughtful people who pay attention to you do not get the critique angle and say that you are doing it on purpose. That doesn't mean you believe it. But it does mean that you know it's acceptable and the less thoughtful people who pay attention to you will not even know they should be upset about it. Maybe some of them are glad that it is still acceptable because they wouldn't know what to say or how to be otherwise. And if they think it's not acceptable in this newer more progressive and thoughtful moment then they will be chastised for not going along with what is just "entertainment" just "music" just "fun and it sounds good" and you know you can do it because pop culture has no power music does not influence not every kid who listens to heavy metal goes out and eats bats and breaks things and beats people up. Of course not. Everyone who pays attention to you is not going to belittle or control or rape or hate women but women are not bats and heavy metal music is about expressing personal pain instead of directing hate out at half of the population. I say that but I have no idea. I don't listen to Marilyn Manson but I am going to look up some lyrics to find out. The critique is that there is no critique. People who pay attention to you just think it sounds good. And you do make a good sound. Lots of things sound good, work well, seem to move along just nicely on the backs of women... or because women have been put on their backs. Exploiting the acceptance of rape and disengaged sexualization of women or just their bodies for marketing purposes, for audiences, because you can, to perpetuate a totally uninteresting trend that is not a trend but a persistent historical and continuously contemporary thing. You are so popular you don't have to be thoughtful or progressive or better than the cliche. It's boring. You are boring. I thought you would be willing to use your smarts in more innovative ways. Instead it is the same old crap.

...and PS Kanye pop culture does have power.

Social panic or random acts of kindness what is on trial here is our very sense of ourselves the integration of social into fabric the intelligent cooperation between one and another. A kind of solitary confinement I admit does little to progress a sense of companionable intelligence, intimate or otherwise. We have lost our humanities our fields of study in regard to insight and philosophical growth our notions toward any value driven future. The economics of non-humanism do little to encourage our survival. Earn money now ignore the collateral damage that lingers into later. Oil profits poison food exploited low paid workers industrial production tax breaks. I do not want to eat arsenic in my chicken petroleum products in my bread chemicals on apples petroleum everything environmental damage is cheaper than regulation real workers cannot afford to eat organic I still do not have any health insurance. Too many degrees and not enough business savvy. Sell develop expand buy more crap. There is not enough money in the world to live a decent life one cannot get all the stuff accumulate grow want need and ignore. Don't sell the art let the children starve close the schools abandon literacy education the chance to develop skills. Take out the walking paths dismantle the neighborhoods build your highways for the wealthy to pass through the masses without vision. There is no where else to go. Every place is here this global economic situation the catastrophic experience that is this defining moment. We can talk about local relationships individuals doing good compassion present tense moments of organizing building parks and planting gardens puling weeds feeding hungry kids tutoring and mentoring developing community groups and doing grassroots good. These are all true. We can fix our own neighborhoods maybe our cities and world. Or maybe grass roots are contained by glass ceilings and walls given space but not too much space given encouragement that can only reach simple distances into capital into the future. I can shop local live in a hut talk to my dog tutor kids plant flowers teach people how to write sentences and read paragraphs. But I can't escape the feeling that something has been planted in my brain sparking shocking the tissue pressing down tightening with subtle pressure every time I dream of revolt.

Video Essays

video essay introduction: http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v9n1/gallery/ve-bresland_j/ve-origin_page.shtml

http://bresland.com/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montaigne/

http://claudiarankine.com/

plus: mullen vimeo: http://vimeo.com/18552888

downtown, like the song

at the expense of
whole collections of art
body parts
clippings (newspaper, toenails, unwanted hair, lawn...)
a refrain, verse, or a new favorite
singer, dancing backstage
with a bottle

acid reflux

apple juice like brandy
wine the occasional traffic incident
work related antithesis
broken plastic flowers
planted in intervals

calm yourself

one painting at a time
sculptures reserved for
fruition (tuition, interest hikes)
and the city circles
like it's both predator and
hoping for a miracle
of time, nuance

the intuitive sense that
lawn furniture is little more than
a gruesome display of
fiscal repression and blatent
mismanagement

how many projects

sunday is a metaphor for summer climbing
against a railing made of socks
the scent of sage, a fine mist against my neck, a splinter
in the bushes a cat wrangles, squawking
lemon candies against my tongue melt like
the sound of orange, melodic but campy
Gerald points toward Detroit and I disagree about the socks
they are made of cotton like candy, fluorescent shades
or maybe they were pastel, muted tones of sugar
crystallizing, god damn sugar molecules
clogging my pores

this is not summer
this is a monday and the clash of visual
detail pertains especially
to a kind of counter logic
what remains after rain on the sides of buildings

she said, "hey girl" and I replied, "sexy" and
"anonymous film making might somehow include us all."

the flamboyantly shaded treasure of hope, against all odds
surfaces like a dead body weighted with rocks
I will sing you this lyric with the back of my throat, if you listen
call me ish and I pursue
what will come to include a variation in texture
a predilection for carnivorous limbs, a bout of national
security amplified, and the giraffe
(or was it an elephant) will speak
promising a stratefied logic on film, like a weekend at the movies

of and off the page

1.

to understand fluorescence the right way to say

or speak

what the body cannot like a scent
at the peak violence, or predilection, an influence

or management system

organized in the way that spring flowers grow

on urban plots. some specific, cultivated some

like weeds, leftover from previous owners,

remembering landscape

2.

in the ocean

molecules a song geologic history

Ingrid I tell you, voices

resonating like waves

draw lines

sand founders

bubbles disperse, survive

as words on rock

pressed against an aging tide, a poem,

letters imprinted on a tree

pacify the rush.

a bluff a sinking

melody across minutes or

millennia

this sentiment livid

like heat across August

blood like screams

held back and distant

scattered like beach glass

and drowning

in cancer memento

a pre-historic era

3.

Ophelia I heard you in the train, your tangles, your roses lament and screech into and out of the station. Blood of insufficiency or rain, a misread sigh, curse of detail, anatomy, politics. I have decided it fits like a metaphor. A glove a leaf a melody. Clarity nuanced like distant sound from every direction.

“a sharp silver glint of rail”

across exterior vibration limbs cross or break

veering according to narrative inclination,

having left you behind, all this time.

4.

an extrication, layering in timely arrangements of speech.

Insert replacement words here.

5.

a story untold, versions

fallen syllables out of scheme

too soon for history

the train in the distance

rain, dissonance

I hear you, imagining

stories out of sort and out of mind

mathematics of failure

what falls

between the gaps

as in,

a girl, in green, a stair case, and a mosaic. I want to cover the light, an echo or planning each new shoot sprouting figure back, backed by lake-scented bubbles, slick shining, awkward ambling like whistles that rewind on the wind. I want to go lolling among fuchsia, dolls on display, doorknob turning over in time. A clue holds fast, a series, donuts or rainbow falter against the shimmer, languid scorn. I want to derive an orange operation, a tale or emotion in a bottle. I want to list each clue like a candle hanging from the end of a sword, sharp and melting.

sense

a siren or a lack of intention, a splatter, like a train wreck or kids on a roll or outside of context, killing, guns don't kill people... like kids or witnesses and a second of noise split there was before; and after, there is only after. you are misguided. an explosion a character formed a limitless series of interrogative statements. publish your dancing comments here. before the trauma repeats itself. but it doesn't repeat it resonates. each emotional fiber reacts unexpectedly in every moment. a turn in the stomach a twitch in the frontal lobe. affects are outward appearances. internal information squelches comprehension like disco pants.  dear elvis dear travolta I am sorry for the intrusion. the repeating effects appear as affect and we all perform. a constriction in the throat screaming at the settled newspaper on the lawn a pain in the back of the neck piercing like needles. fragments of detail on repeat. skipped record. broken volume knob. lather. rinse.

news day

is it because we no longer have art that people are forced to have cathartic responses by way of other people's testimony about real things in the world, I ask. but art is real things, about the real, art evokes our responses because we relate. but when three women are held captive and abused for ten years we cannot relate. the (what we call performative) testimony (which to me resembles real, a formally productive articulation of events, a relation between form and content) becomes the aesthetic process and product. tragicomedy. witnesses of the testimony don't know whether to laugh or cry. witness say stupid things because they are ignorant. white witnesses do not relate to black culture and respond like audiences at a minstrel show. have we not come any further than this? we are ignorant about art. we are ignorant about race in america today. we are incapable of acting like humans in response to human pain and emotion. did the man only going about his business expect to set free a woman who had been held captive in the house across the street for ten years? was he supposed to articulate the experience in some other, white america way (minus expression minus narration minus his blackness) so as not to be the subject of ridicule. nothing that he says is funny. but everyone is laughing. his testimony, in content, disturbs. his articulation genuine, and excited in a way that i mean excited to mean emotional but not without words, maybe still with the adrenaline rush that must come with running across the street to break down a door and rescue a victim of abuse and then running back across the street to call the police. i was just eating my mcdonald's he explains and then the screaming started... who wouldn't be "excited" and how long would that "rush" take to dissipate. i feel sorry for myself and for people when we react like ignorant idiots to traumatic events. is there no compassion for these women, no respect for this man who broke in the door not knowing who else might be in there with a gun or a knife or some other potential violent situation. can we not act as people who understand that we live in a world of violence but also in a world of many people who talk and believe and sound and express and walk and exist differently. is it really possible to live in this world of continuous diversification and ignore the textures of expression, culture, language, personality, color, emotion, understanding. still we continue to abuse each other even when some instances of abuse are agreed to be illegal or unacceptable. we find excuse for abuse when we can call it something else instead. we feign ignorance when we should act better. we reelect politicians we can't trust, we blame the vulnerable for our own shortcomings, we give money to the entities that oppress and control us. we hate ourselves and so we hate each other. we know there's really no such thing as freedom or security, that cameras that catch criminals also may one day catch us or our sisters or our parents. we believe we love our country but our country is killing us. it is killing the least of us and the best of us and we know, somewhere we do know, that there's not actually a distinction between these. there is no least or best or other, but there is only how we all suffer the consequences.

a pound of flesh

I would have been assigned to thinking gratuitously were it not for the stale naked flesh already in my vision. Instead  I will swear on a grave, fuck, shit, moan and see how you like it. You don't like it. I can tell. Ok. another strategy is to ignore the explicit and tend toward sweeter imagery, like scents and shaded nuance. A map, a predetermined round of luck. I have read a book in which the colors vibrate, photos tell a story of crumbled architecture, a literal metaphor for our current times. This of course has nothing to do with stale flesh but I am trying to ignore that at the moment. It sounds like putrid political banter or the empty jargon of men with shiny teeth and photogenic hair. Get on this page, interface that, let's iterate. Stinking discourses of the mainstream. And none of us is outside, huddled together in this center of privileged misery. This is why the poets turn romantic or lean into narrative confessionalism. Dear Sharon Olds, tell us the story of your grandmother again. Sigh. We want catharsis within rational means. Don't make me emote beyond my capacity. This is exactly why fresh flesh works best. The purely physical denotation cannot be dismissed or set on the side of interpretation. Oh Susan Sontag yes it is still always about interpretation. And we are getting worse at it. The leaves of intellect falling into spaces of settling concrete, sidewalks paving over our deepest insights. Dear Susan Sontag the photo has been altered my hopes have been altered the image is just finally so clear. Dear Charles artifice is simply for the sake of artifice and we will absorb. We are sponges. Playing on slick surfaces and shiny baubles. We love letters printed without serif and cartoons that depict the genuine stereotypes of real people. We want our lesson with our oatmeal maybe even dashed with raisins. Our news with the flash. Our memories like polariods, developing into clarity before our eyes. The poetry has become political, music lullabies like sedatives, painting what one does with one's house after too much deliberation. If gratuitous means explicit then let's be clear. I no longer wonder as I wander but I whimper and strain. The rainbow papers and obstructive justice are only like the sweet icy desserts, after a long winter, in which each individual flake of snow is still falling, frozen in space and time.

dear Muriel

ok, dear Muriel

your labor and democratic possibility

a poem of love or politics or balancing each discreet

image (fluttering, on the breeze)

I can tell you that I’ve wondered this myself

the array of conspicuous nature

the nature of

a decided concrete layering

of linguistic suggestion

in shades of pastoral, modified

for these new times

union of sentiment, sediment

chiseling against winter

dear Muriel, I am on your road

distinct trace, a flight of ambitious

optimism, each wing lifting in its turn

tradition of this machine, grammatical

economy of flight and return, continuous

reminder, dust settling and blown away.

subversive publishing

this is a fun project... kind of like the assignment I give students at the end of the semester, but no one has quite taken it this far...

http://carpediemcollaborators.tumblr.com/

from The Way of Imagination

by Scott Russell Sanders

We cannot know for certain how our actions will affect our descendants or

our fellow species, but science helps us make an informed projection; we cannotknow unerringly the right way to act, but compassion offers us the surest guide.No matter how clear the evidence from science and the testimony from ethics,however, if we are to grapple with climate disruption and other global crises,we also need the active sympathy and imaginative energy aroused in us by art.To be sure, much recent art discourages us from imagining a “more perfect”world. Turn on television, visit the cinema, or open a best-selling novel andyou’re likely to encounter stories about people stalking, robbing, murdering, orotherwise harming one another. You’ll meet far more narcissists than altruists,more desperadoes than healers, more warriors than peacemakers. That popularart deals in such fare is not surprising. Physical threats seize our attention, forobvious evolutionary reasons. Strife and destruction are more dramatic than

harmony or healing. In art, as in politics, fear is easier to evoke than hope.

But the greatest art, while acknowledging the world’s brokenness and our

own flaws, conveys glimpses of a potential wholeness, in ourselves and in theworld. One of our names for that tantalizing wholeness is beauty. Glimpsing it in poetry or pottery, hearing it in symphonies or songs, we long to makesomething beautiful ourselves, to lead more beautiful lives.

We yearn to walk in beauty, as the Navajo say. Great art reveals that

beauty is not a superficial trait but the expression of a fundamental force 
running through the cosmos, including our own depths. This is a healing 
force,manifest in the way scattered elements gather into stars, debris 
from super-novas gathers into organisms, organisms form communities—
and in the way

our two-legged kind shapes Earth’s materials into art. What we call

imagination

is a human expression of the shaping force at work in the universe.

The universe was not fashioned all at once, with its present distribution

of species and stars. It has unfolded over billions of years and is unfolding 
still,and so is our understanding of how it works and what our role in it 
might be.Everything we presently behold, no matter how far-flung and 
scattered it mayappear, is part of a single flow that generates new forms—
forms that cohere forshorter or longer periods and then give way to new, 
generally more complexones. On Earth, at least, this dynamic unity has 
produced organisms capableof responding to the creativity of the universe 
with creations of their own. Wepaint and sing and dance and write because 
we are moved by the artfulness ofnature. We can perceive the deep affinity 
between the glaze on a bowl and theiridescence of a butterfly’s wing, 
between a ballerina’s pirouette and the swirlof a spiral galaxy. In light of 
our gifts, it is neither impractical nor utopian forus to imagine leading 
more beautiful lives, forming a more perfect society, oralleviating the 
suffering and fostering the happiness of strangers not yet born.

Like the universe, we are still unfolding. What we become, what we make of

ourselves and our world, will be shaped by many factors, but by none more

powerful than imagination.

creative essay by Dinty Moore

this is lovely, strong, maybe disturbing...

Dinty Moore:  Buried Alive

You can layer me under mud, silt, and soil when I die. You can bury me flat beneath the glorious weight of the sweet-scented earth. Leave me to the industrious earthworms. Let the tree roots have their way. Return my worn body to the oozing, teaming, elemental sludge.

          Or actually, why wait?

          Any Saturday afternoon in April, or May, sometimes late March depending on the thaw, you will find me crawling on my knees, in my garden, ripping away dead plants, scooping clumps of sweet wet soil, digging through the cold, rich dirt like some sort of hairless bear searching for grubs. A hairless bear who just happens to wear thick eyeglasses and muck-covered t-shirts. A hairless bear that grunts, whistles, and occasionally speaks. “Damn, look at those fat worms.”

          I am at my happiest in these grubby moments, elbow deep in primordial soil. I adore the feel of the dirt pressed into my palms, packed between my fingers, coating my forearms up to the elbow. When my denim jeans are spackled, my socks mud-soggy, my forehead speckled, my hair a mop head covered with spider webs, leaves, and twigs, I am content. In this mock burial, oddly, I feel most alive.

         There are people, more respectable than I, who tend to their orderly vegetable beds while standing on two legs. These upright people have long-handled rakes and hoes, pristine gardening outfits, sunburn-prevention hats. They have straight backs. Gardening carts. Cool glasses of iced tea often rest by their left elbow, a beautiful bit of condensation forming along the smooth rim.

          I see them, in catalogs and magazines, but I cannot understand them. Gardening in that manner would be like trying to raise an infant from behind a pane of glass.

          Perhaps I’m descended from the Neanderthals, the group that lost out to the cunning Cro-Magnons back in prehistoric times when the latter figured out tools and fighting implements more quickly than the former. My people were simple folks: they liked hopping around, touching things with their hands.

          Or maybe my ancestral line slinks muddily down from one of those bog bodies in the National Museum of Ireland, murdered and dropped into the muck two-thousand years ago, sacrifices intended to mark important tribal boundaries. It would be an honor of sorts, except for the being murdered part.

          The peat bog muck is cold, acidic, oxygen-free, and mummified the sad bog bodies, prevented their decay. So we can see Old Croghan man and Clonycavan man today, a bit worse for wear, leathery and brown, but whole still, on display in Dublin.

          I visited just last year, and they seemed startled to be out there in the open air.

          I own tools: a garden rake, a hoe, two shovels, a trowel, a wicked-looking weed extractor. I often drag them from my garage, back to the garden, on Saturday mornings, and then promptly forget them entirely, abandoning them three rows behind as I crawl through the miniature jungle, working with the tools given me at birth.

          Show me some dirt and what I do is get dirty.

          My garden is marked by its imperfections, uneven rows, impetuous plantings, and even the occasional propagated moment of herbal wit. I speculate sometimes as to why I prefer the rough, erratic garden: an attempt at justifying my own imperfect life, perhaps? If these peppers can thrive so can I.

          And the soil I am clawing into, after all, is soil made from the scraps of my own consumption; the clay I found seven years ago augmented by composted coffee grounds, egg shells, banana peels, avocado skins, carrots, onions, squash, and lettuce. When I am digging, I am digging through the detritus of my life. That’s me down there.

          Digging my grave.

in april one believes in rain in dogs in the long walk from one implication to another political commitment. yesterday i drank beer. this is all to say that in the event that our schools fail that the politicians deconstruct from the inside out that lines on the sidewalk gap and crumble while some of us pander and shiver in corners, that the sprouts continue to shoot. i have noticed strong green plants minimally sticking themselves out of the dirt. some of them shoot further and then fall over. some of them get chewed out and spat aside. the squirrels in my yard are like michigan legislators, uneducated, uncaring, and utterly destructive. oh sorry was that a straightforward metaphorical political commentary? margaret thatcher lives in the neighborhood in the form of a possum. but maybe that is unfair to the possum. it's ugly and has weird eyes but it hasn't caused any trouble like hate and reckless disregard for the most vulnerable in society. if it has babies under my porch though that may be a different story. the dog is like obama... sometimes assertive and in control of her actions... sometimes a pain in my ass. the old people and the sad people are always at a loss. no one lives to be 87 anymore anyway... oh wait, they live to be 102 and married for 100 years. who could stand it? doesn't biology tell us people are the only ones who claim to be monogamous but really aren't all that they claim? the penguins don't mate for life and morgan freeman is telling a fabricated narrative that makes us all feel better about our constructed heterosexual world. biology is changing. we are on the cusp of new spring directions. we are queer. we are shaded in colors and sound. in the rain i can tell you the scent of disappointment lingers and then slaps the ground. trees are moments of opportunity. leaves imagine like lennon. i want to lay  my head back against the cushion of repercussions but instead i pretend to continue, in this vain, and intuit where to go next. if you have depression there are 21 steps for thinking about it. they may or not help you believe in anything but try walking one step with each step and see where it leads you. i can tell you that in april one may straddle the line between depression and not depression simply according to the size of the sigh, the elevation of resource, an intention toward scorched muscles. i can also tell you that this is only one start to an otherwise unruly manner. in the rain there is a dampening or an acceleration. it depends on the rate at which your profession is disappearing. like prevallet's father like the words on the page, a volume of redacted syllables.

this thing that i am doing

it doesn't matter what you say about it because i am doing this thing. this thing that i am doing is better than most things that you have done. i have a thing and i am doing it and whatever you say in response or as advice or to criticize or to be speaking out loud with no particular point is not relevant to me. you see i have been working in this direction toward this thing and you have been lounging on the beach. or in your head. or outside of any particular thinking. i have warned you that when this is in motion i will continue moving and you will be left aside still unlearning or unimpressed. this thing that i am doing is beyond your capacity. have you thought about your capacity? it is dismal. and there are not comments enough. so when you say i don't give you comments it's because there aren't comments enough. and your capacity is dismal. so you might as well continue to produce in your way outside of comments or optimism. this is not a utopia. if you already know everything than you can create your own world of rules and stories and work. but this is something else. if it were utopia you would be happier. or i would want to talk to you more. we would share comments. we would both move toward more. but you are writing the same sentence repeatedly. one copy after another. the same structure and vocabulary every time. why did you even come here in the first place with only one sentence? this thing that i am moving toward is layered with many kinds of sentences. short and long with varying amounts of adjectives and expletives. sometimes lovely images sometimes abstract concepts. nothing repeats unless it is utterly intentional. as this thing continues to move even the intentional becomes layered and unpredictable. the unpredictable becomes its own thing. and i just follow that. and make comments. and add new sentences. and take longer walks in every direction. sometimes i cross hills and sometimes i circle around. you have never encountered a hill that you didn't turn away from. and head back. toward your same sentence your one word your single idea. it's hard to say it is what you do best. best is not the right word. but the vocabulary is so limited. what you do is motivate me to do this thing that i am doing. regardless of your childish complaints. and maybe in spite of.

EMU Department of English Language and Literature Undergraduate Scholarships

The applications for our English Department undergraduate scholarships are due on Wednesday.

Department of English Language and Literature Undergraduate Scholarships

Irene Little Wallace Scholarship (Excellence, Need, Majors):  This scholarship comes with a minimum, one-time award of $500.  We will be able to award this scholarship to at least five students in Winter 2013.  Students applying for the award must be undergraduate students in the Department of English Language and Literature (any program area) with a GPA of at least 3.0 and demonstrated financial need (can be a line or two description in the essay).   Applications are due in hard-copy to the English Department in Pray-Harrold (6^th Floor) and should be directed to the attention of Professor Melissa Jones.  Students who do not receive the award upon first application are encouraged to resubmit.  Deadlines for submission are listed below.  To apply, a student must submit the following:

·         Coversheet including:

Full Name and e-mail address

Student Number

Local Address

Permanent Address

Local Phone Number

Permanent Phone Number

·         A one-page summary of the following information:

Major

Class Level

Cumulative GPA

GPA in Major

Current Enrollment Hours

Planned Enrollment Hours Next Semester

·         A short essay describing academic and professional goals and achievements, including a statement showing evidence of financial need (500-700 words).  

Deadline for Winter 13 award: Wednesday, March 27, 2013.

Mariam Turbin Scholarship (University or Community Service, Majors and Minors): This scholarship comes with a one-time award of approximately $200.  Students applying for the award must be declared undergraduate majors or minors in the Department of English Language and Literature (any program area), must have a minimum GPA of 3.0, and must demonstrate leadership in University or community activities.  Applications are due in hard-copy to the English Department in Pray-Harrold and should be directed to the attention of Professor Melissa Jones.  Students who do not receive the award upon first application are encouraged to resubmit.  Deadlines for submission are listed below.  To apply, a student must submit the following:  

                                                   

·         Coversheet including:

Full Name and e-mail address

Student Number

Local Address

Permanent Address

Local Phone Number

Permanent Phone Number

·         A one-page summary of the following information:

Major

Class Level

Cumulative GPA

GPA in Major

Current Enrollment Hours

Planned Enrollment Hours Next Semester

·         A short essay describing the student’s leadership activities and the place of service in his or her life.

Deadline for Winter 13 award: Wednesday, March 27, 2013.

Madalene and Jack McClow Memorial End Scholarship (Teaching, Need, Majors or Minors): This scholarship comes with a one-time award of $1,000.  Students applying for the award must be declared undergraduate majors or minors in the Department of English Language and Literature (any program area), must have a minimum GPA of 3.0, must have demonstrated financial need, and must be seeking a teaching certificate.  Preference will be given to students who are preparing to enter their final semester and will be doing their student teaching in the fall.  Applications are due in hard-copy to the English Department in Pray-Harrold and should be directed to the attention of Professor Melissa Jones.  Students who do not receive the award upon first application are encouraged to resubmit.  Deadlines for submission are listed below.  To apply, a student must submit the following:  

                                                   

·         Coversheet including:

Full Name and e-mail address

Student Number

Local Address

Permanent Address

Local Phone Number

Permanent Phone Number

·         A one-page summary of the following information:

Major

Class Level

Cumulative GPA

GPA in Major

Current Enrollment Hours

Planned Enrollment Hours Next Semester

·         A short statement describing the student’s teaching goals and financial need (the latter can be a brief description of self-sufficiency, dependence on loans and work study, etc). 

Deadline for Winter 13 award: Wednesday, March 27, 2013.

some thoughts on Rukeyser/Symposium

In 1977 Audre Lorde spoke of poetry “as a revelatory distillation of experience.” “For women,” Lorde explained, “poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives” (Sister Outsider 37).

Muriel Rukeyser seemed to understand these ideas when she began publishing her poems in the 1930s, and clearly attests to in the Life of Poetry published in (1949). The flyer for the Rukeyser symposium includes the quote “Breathe in experience, Breathe out poetry.” What you may or not already know is that this is actually the first line in the first poem in her first published book, Theory of Flight. Rukeyser absolutely begins and ends in a poetics of experience, a practice in which poems are carved from the experiences of our lives. I think for Lorde and for Rukeyser this begins with the personal, and over their bodies of work opens, or transcends the personal.

The function of breath is the most ordinary and necessary of bodily functions. And as one learns in a yoga practice, it is also essential to the development of the mind-body relationship. The breath is central to the development and control of the mind, and poetry is an ordinary consequence of living from one moment to the next. But poetry, for Rukeyser, is not ordinary in any disparaging sense. Rukeyser makes ordinary language and poetic content function extra-ordinarily, and she believes that poetry, especially, is a kind of knowledge and resource that we are surrounded by, yet which often goes unused. In The Life of Poetry she writes,“it seems to me that we cut ourselves off, that we impoverish ourselves, just here. I think that we are ruling out one source of power, one that is precisely what we need.” In ways similar to and different from other modern women poets Rukeyser creates poems that are layered with poetic tradition, attentive to formal strategy, and that include content that is political but not didactic. Her poems are “ordinary”—using language that generally more common to her contemporary, everyday language—but not naïve or anti-intellectual. She writes of workers, women issues, and social and political events using language that often shifts registers in terms of tone, style, sound, and often includes reference to poetic predecessors as well as contemporary literary and social figures. Rukeyser continuously maintains the poetic/aesthetic space as one of mediation, process, reflection, and commentary in a way that is ordinary and as a specialized resource for contemporary culture, specifically in relation to the ways in which it can be written, read, and used toward the opening of social and political possibility.