Category: Poetry

Summer Series of Saves: analysis is life

@gacruz_phd

“Try That in a Small Town”, Polysemy, and Ideological Fragments #teachersoftiktok #popculture #phd #academia #jasonaldean #music #greenscreen

♬ original sound – Dr. C

Key phrases I learned from his video, ones I knew, and all of them I need to share with students:

Ideological fragment: Dr. Cruz explores how a piece of media can be an ideological fragment, meaning a piece or artifact that represents an larger ideology (belief system).

Transgressions: Wrong-doing against others.

Extralegal: Definition (not sanctioned by the law)

Polysemy: having multiple meanings

Yes, I did Venmo him some cash for his content. You should, too.

Now, next school year when I provide instruction on analyzing media (literature, poetry, videos, etc.) and through the lens of facts, opinions, and truth, as well as poetry instruction (revised from Mud & Ink) What an amazing #mentortext to discuss our purposes for analyzing and discussing the media we consume.

troll

Read “Troll” by Shane Koyczan on Genius

Once upon a time,
You and all your kind lived underneath bridges,
Had ridges for ribs that dropped off into empty chests as if your Hearts were all stolen treasures,
As if an excavation crew were hired to dig up and remove the part Of you that let you feel.
And while the world above you invented the wheel, you stayed put,
Knowing it would one day need to roll over top of you to get to Where it’s going.
You had an endlessly flowing supply line of food.
You began to brood over humanity and made meals of our hope,
As if crushing our spirits would make your mirrors cast better Reflections than the ones they gave,
As if the only way you could save yourselves was to make the world Ugly so no one would notice you hiding in it.
You learned to knit pain into a kind of camouflage,
Treated hope like a mirage that you could use to lure in your next meal.
You lived off of our fears, as if you could taste what we feel.
And every night, as the moon read bedtime stories to sunlight.
You took darkness as an invite to head out into the world,
You curled your hands into wrecking balls, your breath became Squalls, you made rocks rumble, you made land shiver
You made boys and girls pray that someone would deliver them From you
We told them you aren’t real.
Then one day, the world changed, but you all stayed the same.
Just migrated from living underneath bridges to living underneath Information super-highways.
Days and nights became meaningless, each already deepened Chest became an abyss that no one would ever find the bottom of.
Concepts like love fell into your gravity, we turned ourselves into Live preservers, hoping to save as many as we could,
But the fathers who stood guarding closet doors and the mothers Who secured the floors underneath beds,
All shook their heads not knowing how to deal with you.
You, who crept into our lives with tongues like knives stabbing your Words into our skin.
You began to begin uploading yourselves into our homes you had Computer screens for eyes, and software for bones.
You turned your hate into stones and hurled them at beauty,
As if you couldn’t bear to see anything other than ugly, anything Different.
You had fingernails like flint, and scraped them along decency hoping we would be the ones to all catch fire.
You all had smiles like one-way barbed wire not meant to keep us Out,
Meant to keep us in
Voice like a firing pin, you spoke in explosions
It isn’t cute. It isn’t funny.
You’ve talked strangers into death, and laughed.
And as each family learns to graft skin over the wounds you gave them, you hem yourselves into the scar.
You have coaxed the sober back into bars,
Handed out cigars at memorials,
Offered nooses, cliffs, and pills to those who unfortunately found You before they found help.
You have praised suffering,
Waltzed in between tragedies,
Gracefully dipping misery as if we would somehow be impressed With the dexterity of your animosity.
You have cheered on rape, dashed through police tape as if it were The finish line in a race of who can be awful first.
Even now,
You somehow see this as an invitation to turn your keyboards into Catapults,
Wondering which of you can be the first to hate this best.
Your loathing, already dressed in riot gear,
Ready to incite rage,
As if each message board is a stage,
Where you recite hostility,
Turning freedom of speech into freedom of cruelty.
We are stuck with you, the same way you are stuck with you.
Your mind is glue, and it keeps malice fastened there like cheap Wallpaper.
We were once upon a time told that none of you exist, we Dismissed you as make believe or myth.
Now armed only with resolve, we can no longer afford to tell Ourselves that you aren’t real.
We will not let you make your dinners out of the things we feel.

Troll by Shane Koyczan

Series: White People Homework: Poetry (18)

Three sources for resources about poets and poetry.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Poetry comes in our lives when we may be turned facing other needs: or we may seek it to soothe our souls. The abundance of poetry and beauty shared by BIPOC is vast and luminous. This post shares a fraction of places to find poets and poetry.

#TeachLivingPoets https://teachlivingpoets.com/

Poets.Org https://poets.org/

Poets.Org provides multiple resources for poets and poetry. It has lessons for teachers, and superb curated content.

I Can’t Breathe

Pamela Sneed

I suppose I should place them under separate files
Both died from different circumstances kind of, one from HIV AIDS and possibly not having
taken his medicines
the other from COVID-19 coupled with
complications from an underlying HIV status
In each case their deaths may have been preventable if one had taken his meds and the
hospital thought to treat the other
instead of sending him home saying, He wasn’t sick enough
he died a few days later
They were both mountains of men
dark black beautiful gay men
both more than six feet tall fierce and way ahead of their time
One’s drag persona was Wonder Woman and the other started a black fashion magazine
He also liked poetry
They both knew each other from the same club scene we all grew up in
When I was working the door at a club one frequented
He would always say to me haven’t they figured out you’re a star yet
And years ago bartending with the other when I complained about certain people and
treatment he said sounds like it’s time for you to clean house
Both I know were proud of me the poet star stayed true to my roots
I guess what stands out to me is that they both were
gay black mountains of men
Cut down
Felled too early
And it makes me think the biggest and blackest are almost always more vulnerable
My white friend speculates why the doctors sent one home
If he had enough antibodies
Did they not know his HIV status
She approaches it rationally
removed from race as if there were any rationale for sending him home
Still she credits the doctors for thinking it through
But I speculate they saw a big black man before them
Maybe they couldn’t imagine him weak
Maybe because of his size color class they imagined him strong
said he’s okay
Which happened to me so many times
Once when I’d been hospitalized at the same time as a white girl
she had pig-tails
we had the same thing but I saw how tenderly they treated her
Or knowing so many times in the medical system I would never have been treated so terribly if I
had had a man with me
Or if I were white and entitled enough to sue
Both deaths could have been prevented both were almost first to fall in this season of death
But it reminds me of what I said after Eric Garner a large black man was strangled to death over
some cigarettes
Six cops took him down
His famous lines were I can’t breathe
so if we are always the threat
To whom or where do we turn for protection?

The Academy of American Poets Announces Six New Poem-a-Day Guest Editors for Summer Series Centering Black Poets: https://poets.org/academy-american-poets-announces-six-new-poem-day-guest-editors-summer-series-centering-black-poets

PoetryFoundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/147872/the-drone

Then and Now: what poets can teach us

I asked the question: was there a scholar who wrote about the 1917 pandemic with wisdom and guidance? I am ashamed that I looked in the wrong place, and should have been looking for a poet.

I asked the question: was there a scholar who wrote about the 1918 pandemic with wisdom and guidance? I am ashamed that I looked in the wrong place, and should have been looking for a poet.

Kyrie by Ellen Bryant Voigt

From Blackbird Archive, read the curated content: https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v17n2/gallery/1918/intro_page.shtml

Soon it was a farmer in the field—

someone’s brother, someone’s father—

left the mule in its traces and went home.

Then the mason, the miller at his wheel,

from deep in the forest the hunter, the logger,

and the sun still up everywhere in the kingdom.

     ―Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie

https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v17n2/gallery/1918/intro_page.shtml

It’s a hard thing to acknowledge, that the country’s current administration (executive branch) is killing us. This is not hyperbole. At every turn, the executive branch failed and exacerbated the crisis. We could be so much better. We could do so much better. My hope is hanging on by a thread. We need to fight this on so many fronts: the media must do better. We must rethink capitalism. We need to strengthen our communities and love for one another. I do not share Ms. O’Meara’s optimism at this writing, but you might:

In the Time of Pandemic

And the people stayed home.

And they read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.

And they listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. 

Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.

And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

—Kitty O’Meara

Other resources and readings:

“Invisible Bullets”

9 Ways Schools Will Look Different When (And If) They Reopen

What I Show to the World

What happens when we pay attention to each other.

Sometimes the inspiration our students need is right there, in real time.

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What Happened When I Went To School With My Hair Out

Sherri Spelnic @edifiedlistener is a wonderful writer and educator, and her poem is beautiful. On Tuesday, I shared it with students and my own shameful experience from several years ago, around 2009. There was a strict rule, and I mean STRICT – no hats, scarves, bandanas, even headbands. We teachers were in charge of policing the hallways for any hoodie, hat, cap, beanie, toque, etc. Hijabs, of course, were fine. I say “of course” but I am certain in some American schools they are misunderstood and targeted. One young Black girl came to class a few days in a row with a red bandana. I told her that the school rule was that type of head covering was against dress code. After three days of her wearing it, I called for support from the office. One of the best admins I’ve ever had, Lavonta Howard, who was an AP at the time, quietly told me to let it go, because her mother had cut her hair in an alcoholic rage, and the relationship between hair and a Black girl is unique. I don’t remember his exact words, but I got it immediately. I was angry at her mother for the pain she caused her daughter, angry at the ridiculous “rules” that put me in a position not to be compassionate, and mostly at myself for not understanding what was at stake. The psychology of cruel authority took over my better judgment, and from that day forward I never let a ‘rule’ interfere with my humanity or deny others the dignity of theirs. I am forever grateful for Lavonta to provide me with grade and understanding.

When I shared that with my current students, they also offered me grace. We walked through our own process of thinking about our physical selves:

  • Hair/face
  • Clothes
  • Weight/height

I modeled that I would take about some things, but didn’t feel like I wanted to talk about my weight. I took that risk and tried to show vulnerability, that we don’t always want to share what we think about ourselves. We don’t want to be mocked.

This process didn’t work for every child in the room — but it allowed a place for many. And for those who shared, and those who didn’t, we all came to a better place of empathy. Some people often make fun of teenagers and selfies, but I get it. I loved self-portraits and looked at myself in the mirror, more than I’d like to admit, as if I would see my identity form and shape in front of my eyes. In a way it did.

From one of my students from Tanzania: “My mom used to say I was a King.”

Thank you to Ms. Spelnic, for your grace. My students needed this–right words, right time.

poetry month

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/video/142394/we-real-cool

https://eveewing.com/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/video/77400/snake

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_ZOkJg7G0qh3rz1lYp_dCjvlmp0KMTJI/view

https://blog.ted.com/10-spoken-word-performances-folded-like-lyrical-origami/

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/top-50-spoken-word-poems?sec=pop24&utm_expid=.53hHQ_sIS_GVYl9TPM4psw.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

30 ways to celebrate national poetry month

  1. Request a free copy of the National Poetry Month poster until mid-April; posters can be purchased for $5.00 each in our Poets shop thereafter (while supplies list).
  2. Sign up for Poem-a-Day and read a poem each morning.
  3. Sign up for Teach This Poem, a weekly series for teachers.
  4. Memorize a poem.
  5. Create an anthology of your favorite poems on Poets.org.
  6. Encourage a young person to participate in the Dear Poet project.
  7. Buy a book of poetry from your local bookstore.
  8. Review these concrete examples of how poetry matters in the United States today.
  9. Learn more about poets and poetry events in your state.
  10. Ask your governor or mayor for a proclamation in support of National Poetry Month.
  11. Attend a poetry reading at a local university, bookstore, cafe, or library.
  12. Read a poem at an open mic. It’s a great way to meet other writers in your area and find out about your local poetry writing community.
  13. Start a poetry reading group.
  14. Write an exquisite corpse poem with friends.
  15. Chalk a poem on the sidewalk.
  16. Deepen your daily experience by reading Edward Hirsch’s essay “How to Read a Poem.”
  17. Ask the United States Post Office to issue more stamps celebrating poets.
  18. Recreate a poet’s favorite food or drink by following his or her recipe.
  19. Read about different poetic forms.
  20. Read about poems titled “poem.”
  21. Watch a poetry movie.
  22. Subscribe to American Poets magazine or a small press poetry journal.
  23. Watch Rachel Eliza Griffiths’s P.O.P (Poets on Poetry) videos.
  24. Watch or read Carolyn Forche’s talk “Not Persuasion, But Transport: The Poetry of Witness.”
  25. Read or listen to Mark Doty’s talk “Tide of Voices: Why Poetry Matters Now.”
  26. Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day today! The idea is simple: select a poem you love, carry it with you, then share it with coworkers, family, and friends.
  27. Read Allen Ginsberg’s classic essay about Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”
  28. Sign up for a poetry class or workshop.
  29. Get ready for Mother’s Day by making a card featuring a line of poetry.
  30. Read the first chapter of Muriel Rukeyer’s inspiring book The Life of Poetry.

 

Think I’ll try #s2, 14, and 21.

And, I’m going to use these graphics for a display case (photos to come):

Poetry Month