Well, I started this blog with the idea that it would help me to get a job in a community college and that I should consolidate the google search results for my writing. I was kind of bummed that I had started a blog, just because I try to avoid all of that online stuff. So I just let it lay dormant, and hoped it would just be an online resume.
Now I'm working in a high school full time, and this blog doesn't really serve a purpose anymore. The 6am grind has really gotten to me. We seem to be teaching to the test. Skills, skills, skills. The kids say two pages is long. We don't teach writing; it's not tested on the 11th grade SOL. I feel so far away from MFA land now. I think of it as a kind of idyllic place, where I used to read and write with people who cared about reading and writing. I feel sad and wonder if I can be a high school teacher forever.
Then yesterday, I found out Shipyard Incidents was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. I wrote that story almost two years ago now, and revised it last year. It felt like the ghost of my former self, reaching out to my present self, saying, well, you used to be a writer, wanna be one still? I felt so motivated last night. I showed it to my friend Rachel who teaches here too, and she said she'd read anything I wrote.
This morning in 1st period, I had a really bad class. They told me, I'm not reading. You can't make me. They called me Ms. Casey continually, even after I told them my name was Ms. Sears, because she's "the other white lady" and they claim they can't keep us straight. One lied about needing to pick up his binder from his mom and when he came back, he had potato chips from sneaking into the teacher's lounge. They wouldn't put their cell phones away. But I just kept reminding myself, there's something bigger than this! It doesn't matter if they hate reading and writing. Not everyone does.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
The Power and the Glory
I just finished The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. It felt ominous and dark, with this dreadful sense of foreboding the whole time. I was so fascinated by it. Here are some quotes from it that I really liked.
"It was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or a civilization--it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt" (97).
"Behind the wire-netted windows of the private houses grandmothers swung back and forth in rocking-chairs, among the family photographs--nothing to do, nothing to say, with too many clothes on, sweating a little. This was the capital city of a state" (103).
"This place was very like the world: overcrowded with lust and crime and unhappy love, it stank to heaven; but he realized that after all it was possible to find peace there, when you knew for certain that the time was short" (125).
"When you visualized a man or woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity...when you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination" (131).
"Time depends on clocks and the passage of light" (133).
I loved the feeling that we aren't worthy of being saved, that the priest was a bad priest and yet people were dying to protect him. I loved the idea that we all have an indelible spot inside of us, which is the knowledge of the world; we are all irredeemable. It made me want to read more books about Mexico and about the anti-clerical purges, from a Mexican point of view this time, rather than an English one. I stumble a lot into books about other countries from an English or American perspective. I need to seek out books about those countries from the perspective of people who live there. Greene spent less than a year in Mexico, in 1938.
I felt like we read way too much American contemporary fiction in the MFA program. Occasionally, a Canadian would sneak in and that Canadian was almost always Alice Munro. I understand that you need to know the field that you're trying to publish in. But I got so tired of contemporary American fiction; we read almost nothing in translation. I wasn’t sure if that was because of a mistrust of translation or if it was just an American-centric narrow-mindedness. Anyway, maybe I’ll spend some time reading only books not originally written in English.
"It was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or a civilization--it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt" (97).
"Behind the wire-netted windows of the private houses grandmothers swung back and forth in rocking-chairs, among the family photographs--nothing to do, nothing to say, with too many clothes on, sweating a little. This was the capital city of a state" (103).
"This place was very like the world: overcrowded with lust and crime and unhappy love, it stank to heaven; but he realized that after all it was possible to find peace there, when you knew for certain that the time was short" (125).
"When you visualized a man or woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity...when you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination" (131).
"Time depends on clocks and the passage of light" (133).
I loved the feeling that we aren't worthy of being saved, that the priest was a bad priest and yet people were dying to protect him. I loved the idea that we all have an indelible spot inside of us, which is the knowledge of the world; we are all irredeemable. It made me want to read more books about Mexico and about the anti-clerical purges, from a Mexican point of view this time, rather than an English one. I stumble a lot into books about other countries from an English or American perspective. I need to seek out books about those countries from the perspective of people who live there. Greene spent less than a year in Mexico, in 1938.
I felt like we read way too much American contemporary fiction in the MFA program. Occasionally, a Canadian would sneak in and that Canadian was almost always Alice Munro. I understand that you need to know the field that you're trying to publish in. But I got so tired of contemporary American fiction; we read almost nothing in translation. I wasn’t sure if that was because of a mistrust of translation or if it was just an American-centric narrow-mindedness. Anyway, maybe I’ll spend some time reading only books not originally written in English.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
awp 2011
i felt like i was floating above myself, disembodied. i went to way too many panels and did not spend enough time in the bookfair or at readings. i was hiding out in the panels. i didn’t want to see anyone from emerson at first; weirdly, i avoided the redivider table. when i finally did go into the bookfair and did go to the redivider table, i realized that i didn’t have enough time for all the things i wanted to see and i realized how much i had missed emerson friends since moving away from boston.
i felt small and sort of lost. my nametag still said “emerson” on it, but i don’t even live in boston anymore. the panels seemed more focused on craft this year, and not so much about jobs and teaching. there were some surprise readings at panels that were supposed to be discussions and a lot of surprise discussions of new media. i loved the panel on linked stories and the panel on rejection.
the panel on tenure track jobs made me want to get a high school teaching certificate.
on the bus on the way back to richmond, i read our island of epidemics by matt salesses, (published by pank) which reminded me of italo calvino’s cosmicomics. it gave me the light, flying feeling that i get when i read playful fiction. i loved it. i also read if you’re not yet like me by edan lepucki (flatmancrooked). i loved the story, “i am the lion now.” it made me think about justin and me, and being happily married. there was so much humor in such small things in that piece--it reminded me to not take myself too seriously. i also read a lot of the new issue of redivider.
when i got back to richmond, i made a big list of journals to submit to. if i wasn’t broke, i would submit to contests.
awp inspired me to keep on writing, reading and submitting, despite not being in an mfa program anymore. looking at all of the small presses at the bookfair reminded me, there is life after the mfa.
i felt small and sort of lost. my nametag still said “emerson” on it, but i don’t even live in boston anymore. the panels seemed more focused on craft this year, and not so much about jobs and teaching. there were some surprise readings at panels that were supposed to be discussions and a lot of surprise discussions of new media. i loved the panel on linked stories and the panel on rejection.
the panel on tenure track jobs made me want to get a high school teaching certificate.
on the bus on the way back to richmond, i read our island of epidemics by matt salesses, (published by pank) which reminded me of italo calvino’s cosmicomics. it gave me the light, flying feeling that i get when i read playful fiction. i loved it. i also read if you’re not yet like me by edan lepucki (flatmancrooked). i loved the story, “i am the lion now.” it made me think about justin and me, and being happily married. there was so much humor in such small things in that piece--it reminded me to not take myself too seriously. i also read a lot of the new issue of redivider.
when i got back to richmond, i made a big list of journals to submit to. if i wasn’t broke, i would submit to contests.
awp inspired me to keep on writing, reading and submitting, despite not being in an mfa program anymore. looking at all of the small presses at the bookfair reminded me, there is life after the mfa.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)