Summertime

27 Jun 2008 Leave a Comment

by Jackie in personal goals, teaching, writing

Like many teachers, I am not taking the summer off from working!  I just got back from a school trip which was wonderful, but was certainly work, and I have a fair amount of work for the next school year to tackle this summer.  I have several books to read that I’ll be teaching for the first time this fall/year, some I’ve never read and one that I haven’t read in years, and I need to go back through my teaching materials.  I think most teachers do this periodically, and the summer is a good time: revising lesson plans that almost worked but didn’t, polishing lesson plans that did shine already, rejecting ones that fell flat, and doing the same with major assignments.

I also have writing plans, including a one-day workshop on submitting to literary journals, another poetry workshop at the art museum (this one involving the permanent collection and a chance to have our poems included in the museum’s audio tour), and joining a new organization of women writers mentoring girl writers here in Baltimore.  It’s pretty exciting, and dovetails nicely with one of my stated writing goals for this year, which was to find a way to be part of a literary community here in my city and also to take steps to further myself as a poet.

Rushdie

09 Jun 2008 4 Comments

by Jackie in authors

For the true voracious reader, there’s no better pleasure than discovering a new author, especially one with a sizeable back catalogue to dig into, and especially one who’s still writing!

This past week, I read The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie and made just such a discovery. He reminds me of my favorite authors who are non-native English speakers, like Nabokov and Garcia Marquez, who seem so infatuated with the English language and its rich intricacies. And like Marilynne Robinson, there are sentences of Rushdie’s that are so lovely and complex and witty, that I have to read them slowly enough to fully savor them.

So I’ll be taking another Rushdie book, Midnight’s Children, on an upcoming long flight, and if I enjoy that one as much as Feet, then I’ll try working my way back through all his titles. All I knew of him came from the furor over The Satanic Verses, but since I was only ten or so when the book came out, I never read any of his work. Also, my academic training is in American Studies, so I’ve had to make a conscious effort to broaden my literary scope.

Quick Heartbreak

01 Jun 2008 1 Comment

by Jackie in poetry

One of the links over there in my side bar is Paper Cuts, the blog of the book section of the New York Times, which I read regularly and always enjoy. There are a pair of threads recently that I’ve especially liked, one on poems of consolation for the lonely or heartbroken and another on novels (and short stories) of breakups and losses. I also read about a book recently called My Mistress’ Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro, which I’m adding to my summer reading list. My favorite discovery so far is from the poetic thread, a little witty gem from Raymond Carver that reminds me of my dear husband:

Still Looking Out for Number One

Now that you’ve gone away for five days,
I’ll smoke all the cigarettes I want,
where I want. Make biscuits and eat them
with jam and fat bacon. Loaf. Indulge
myself. Walk on the beach if I feel
like it. And I feel like it, alone and
thinking about when I was young. The people
then who loved me beyond reason.
And how I loved them above all others.
Except one. I’m saying I’ll do everything
I want here while you’re away!
But there’s one thing I won’t do.
I won’t sleep in our bed without you.
No. It doesn’t please me to do so.
I’ll sleep where I damn well feel like it –
where I sleep best when you’re away
and I can’t hold you the way I do.
On the broken sofa in my study.