Stafford's Poem From time to time I find a poem that would be a perfect college essay, as is. Read it, and weep. William Stafford's "A Ritual to Read to Each Other," guts me word by word. I want to help my students make their college essays this pointed and distilled. So let's study this guy, a master of his form; he knows word economy. His poem unsettles. Good-- who wants to settle? That's for pre-Trump era folks. "If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star." Read the rest here. Stafford's poem helps us figure out how to be with one another as people (because generally speaking, we're pretty piss at winning peace prizes, folks). He is a badass** writer, somehow direct but also circumspect: "Lest our mutual life get lost in the dark." How is that for Twitter-able accuracy? As a side note, I would also feel really cool if one of my students wrote something this devastating and accurate. (Which, by the way, they sometimes do, just that most of them aren't famous for it yet.) These lines have haunted me for years. They could not be more relevant. Be Woke As a buzzkill and injunction to BE WOKE, I'll post Stafford's last lines. But you're best served by reading the whole poem aloud, again and again. Better if you can read it to somebody. Maybe somebody who, like the rest of us, needs to WAKE UP ALREADY. "For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe — should be clear: the darkness around us is deep." Again, you can visit the whole poem here. Light up your essay I often misremember the poem's last lines as "the answers we give should be clear..." But you could easily substitute, "the college essays we write...should be clear!" --because the Continue Reading …
inspiration
Feeling Stuck? Move!
Stuck really sucks Do you ever just feel stuck? Literally? On the page, in your head, with that stupid crank in your neck? Twinge in your tight back? If you said no, never been stuck, you're amazing, and also the exception. You should come over and tell me all your secrets, which I can afterward try to pass off in a blog post as my own. (Just kidding, but you will obviously be on Oprah before then!) Thing is: Most of us, most of the time, feel more stuck than not. And the way to deal with that is so simple it's like asking how you should end your sentences (with a period!): MOVE. That's right, move. My friend and colleague Ruthie Fraser wrote this gorgeous little book about that: Stack Your Bones: 100 simple lessons for realigning your body and moving with ease. Here's more on that. Each exercise has broad applicability; each encourages movement to be natural, but with clear energetic goals and room for improvisation. So "Vary Your Route" begins, "Come to your hands and knees. Lengthen your spine. Extend your elbows." These cues might be familiar if you've ever done yoga. However, she encourages us to start with the familiar, and shift to novel shapes. "Habitual movements create habitual thinking. Feel your mind open as your body travels new routes." She offers simple exercises-- but profound, like a period is profound! One little dot indicating both an end and a beginning!-- that can be utilized at any time, as a foundation for however you prefer to move or exercise. They can also be used in stillness, as a computer break when working on, say, your college essay, or some other writing project that begs for nourishing interruption. She hopes we can all feel firsthand in our bodies what unstuck could be like. And perhaps it will help you align your ideas a little more clearly with your intentions. Or introduce some wildness into bland sentences. Speaking of wildness...speaking of moving... I recently listened to an amazing Continue Reading …
Claim Your Education
Claim our Education? What you talkin' bout, Willis? In common speak: we go to college to "get" an education-- yes? And sometimes we "get" our knickers (don't cringe: it's a cliche) brains in a bunch trying to figure out where to do that. This school or that school? OMG this University? Or OMFG THAT University? Butter side up or butter side down? I don't know and neither do you. But I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what it means to get an education, and how you know when you've gotten one. And one little word-- a shift in semantics-- could change how we think about all this-- and ourselves. Claim = Call Out Adrienne Rich, poet, activist and teacher, cautioned in her commencement address, "We are not here to receive an education, we are here to claim one." I love this. But what's the difference? If you've read much here, you know I have a long history as a Classics nerd and scholar. So when I look up the etymology to consider WTF Rich means, "Claim" --> from the Latin "clamare" = "to call out." So I think about what people do from rooftops on New Years. The exhilaration and breathlessness and leaning into the next thing, hoping for things to always be getting better. Education is not a thing. It is an action; it is something-- poor fool-- that you do. It's not something you "get." It's not, actually, a product at all. Even though the consumer can be baited, education is- or should be-- beyond capitalism. You can sit down with a wise person anywhere. You can teach yourself almost anything online, thanks to the Glory of Youtube. You can even teach people how not to get their knickers brains in a bunch. Education is a long, mystifying process of ingesting knowledge. Then, a longer process-- that keeps happening far far beyond graduation-- of turning that knowledge into who you are and how you operate. So it is not just part of your resume, but your raison d'etre (I use French when I need to be taken seriously). Tall Continue Reading …
Stay Inspired
How do YOU stay inspired, Toni Morrison? I was already nursing a huge crush on Toni Morrison as she spoke about her fictional characters' natural limitations-- how, like you and I, they only know what they know. Her confiding tone, her flirtatious but never-bullshitty manner, made me (and every other "me" there to see her, I suspect) feel as if it were just us two on a porch together, at some place and time that compelled honesty to a fault. Ms. Morrison's interviewer, Professor Claudia Brodsky, drew an audience question from the stack of submitted index cards. She smiled at the author, a close friend and subject of her academic studies: "How do you stay inspired?" The Brooklyn temple, packed to the gills, hushed entirely to hear what Ms. Morrison would say, with her twinkling eyes and easy hands, with her direct simplicity and charm. Because, hell, this was like the elixir of creative life about to come from the Mouth of Literary Giant Morrison. This could fix all of our problems. She said WHAT? But Instead of haranguing the muse's poor attendance record, instead of telling us a recipe, a trick, her answer was both jubilant and matter-of-fact: "Because I can't not!" Right. She can't not stay inspired. Anyone else have that problem? "Because I have to be creative," she continued. "I have to be! It's me!" She said that the way a doctor might tell you your blood had to circulate. Let that sink in: queen of the novel, now well into her wisdom-years, in a wheelchair for unknown reasons, with her nest of braided hair resting in the curve of her neck like a crown worn backwards, continues to be creatively inspired not because she owes it to anyone, not because of any contract, not because of anything. Because that's who she is. She can't help you stay inspired-- but you can! All the desperate writers in the room, all the hungry writers, the people slightly disenchanted with their lot or lives or creative practice, all those Continue Reading …
Tips for Exercise While Sitting
Let's get the facts about exercise: Americans spend more time sitting, and sitting with poor posture, staring into our devices, than most descendants of apes do. We're famous for this statistic. But that doesn't mean we can't find sneaky, critical ways to do better and fit in stress-alleviating exercise-- even while we're shackled to our computers, our desks, our homework and, in this case, our college applications (if you still haven't finished yours. In which case, o baby, you better get a move on!). Can you really exercise while sitting? This excellent article by fierce yoga teacher Ana Forrest (read: hardest ab work I've ever done in my life, and a great physical antidote to fear and stagnation) details great ways to keep moving even when you're stuck sitting. Try Ana's suggestions at your desk-- or, if you're a jet-setter, on the airplane (you know you want to be that person on the plane who everyone stares at, don't you?). Generally, long stretches spent sitting should be punctuated by breaks so you can increase blood flow and give your brain a boost. Also, you'll feel less busted and more bionic. Exercise stirs up your circulation, your joie d'vivre and your efficiency. It makes you feel better, period, during and after. So why not optimize how you feel while you're doing what you gotta do? If you missed that first link because you were distracted by your numb butt and throbbing neck, read how here. How Exercise Helped Me When I was in grad school getting my MFA in writing, I spent long hours staring at my computer, writing or, um, pretending to write. Once per hour, I would jump up and get my freak on by faux jump-roping (I had a basement office), wall-push-ups, and low back stretches (many taught to me by NYC master yoga teacher, Alison West). I made sure to inflate my lungs all the way, and breathe out as deeply as I could, shake out my hands and roll out my neck (poor, poor neck!). And, BAM! The muse (or call her the Continue Reading …