Teaching note

Wrestling a bit with the question, in my visual poetry course, whether and how to involve my own creative efforts. My thought has always been, a teacher should keep his work to his own damn self, none of that preening, thanks much to yehs. And yet I’m a living working maker and maybe that could be of help to my students. Esp. since almost every prompt I give them emerges from some struggle I’ve found myself in and found a way at least partway through. Abnegation of ego is more ego.

(Too, I’ve already stretched the envelope, posting their work on this blog. All kinds of sound reasons not to do such a thing. And the effects seem to have been good, benign, affirming, from the signs I’ve been given to see.)

So well my thought is to post, among the prompts I give my students, and some of the works they do in response, a few of my own efforts, recent or distant, with maybe a few comments. Maybe they’ll come see them maybe no.

E.g., recently posted a treated page exercise, soon will post a few of their lovely answers, and might be – helpful?? amusing? cause for benign condescending laughter 10⁶ years hence among as yet unmade inhabitants of star system X93 in galaxy P1945Q? – watch that self-abnegation engine whirr into action – for me to post as well some of my efforts on the same terrain. And so I think I will.

I was cleaning the house, sorting papers, and the itch came to post to my blog, and so here we are.

The treated page I will write about when and if I do:

(That took me, guys, so you know, months. More, more than a decade, if you go back to the date of the source text – a dream I had of wandering as a child at ease in a marketplace.)

They are such a kind group. I was observed by a tenured colleague on Tuesday, no reason to be nervous, but of course I was, and they did beautifully, bore me up wonderfully, just by being themselves. Mean to tell them tomorrow how grateful I am.

all things bear one up
robins in the high meadow