Check out Mr. Mathew Digges, cartoonist at the well-loved and web-famous SEQUENTIAL-LIFE, who is volunteering to do CARTOONS AND SKETCHES for a donation to a cause very near and dear to my heart–my mom, Marla.
Poem-o-Day: May 2
I’ve just completed a few days of the April Poetry Challenge (on various sites) and thought, why not keep it going? If you’re interested, I’d love to have you complete the prompt and post your own efforts as a comment!
Today’s Prompt: 12 Hours and 24 lines. Choose 12 random hours in your day, and write two lines for each hour; connect them!
Here’s my effort!
K.E. Ogden
May 2, 2009
Prompt: 12 hours, 24 lines
SALUBRIOUS SELF INDULGENCE
1. Each wrist scarred with envy and ego;
if blood ran through veins on the outside.
I have broken my toe.
2. Each hand cups an egg-full of rice. You
are laughing; God, how I love that laugh.
3. Blind eyes, pockets of scar tissue. Pony-tails
pull until the cheekbones lift.
4. Your eyes are so blue. Behind you,
a pigeon walks in each footstep.
5. Hazard; weeds and parking
meters. Catwoman pretends to scratch
my eyes out.
6. Plum-pink, the petals wilt in full sun. Cornered
in the shade, I watch
our neighbor slide an aluminum
walker toward the liquor store.
7. Color me in cologne. Color me in blush.
8. Each plate of meat sizzles. I’m put in mind
of the hair on your head; like grass,
it needs mowing every month.
9. To cast a sideways glance at punctuation
graffiti. A boy
kicks his sister in the belly,
but she clenches her fists.
10. Half-lit, yellowed teeth. And smoke
drunk on pink lungs.
11. Mosquitos flop around the swimming pool. Each
of their wings is clotted with chlorine.
12. Why your hands on these thighs? Why your
hands on these breasts?
Fishing for Agency
I’m in crisis mode; home sick after the first three weeks of a new semester, I am amazed that March is flying by and I am feeling the weight of my position as a teacher. I think it’s important, being a teacher. I think that good teachers do certain things, and bad teachers do certain things–and these behaviors toward our students help shape the future. Lately–like, say, the past 3 years or so–I’ve been wondering about my role as a teacher, and have been wondering about my ability to impart a desire for knowledge (rather than a set of skills for a job).
Say it ain’t so, Mr. O!!!
“Merit” pay for teachers? That’s like paying kids for being on time and doing their homework! Today President Obama gave a speech backing merit pay for teachers, arguing that rewarding excellent teachers with extra pay is a sure-fire way to improve our schools. Frankly, I’d love to get extra pay should my students over-perform all the rest of the students out there, but there are simply too may variables to consider for such a proposal; additionally, the various merit-pay plans don’t actually address the real problems of our public school systems.
It’s easy to say that rewards produce results and then toss some cash at it, but haven’t adults always instilled in our children a sense of responsibility? A “do the right thing” kind of approach? A “you do it because it has to be done” kind of motto? If we begin rewarding our students just for showing up to school and then reward teachers for simply doing the job we’re already getting paid to do then our nation will never actually get our schools to the place they should be at–a place where education is respected and desired for the sake of being educated. Having taught in the LAUSD public school system, and in the So Cal community college system, I can honestly say that some teachers are worse than me, and some teachers are better than me; but rather than offer money to reward teachers based on some sort of inadequate rubric for measuring who would get this money and how much of it they’d get, we need to acknowledge a few things, and then support a few other things. Continue reading →
The School of Dreams (and other things)
Darcie’s post over at the Kenyon Review Blog had me thinking a lot about what it means “to be human, and a writer, living in the world.”
I had a realization when I read Darcie’s Laura (Riding) Jackson Goes to Prom blog post. I realized that time is not the thing–not anything–it is this: (From The Simple Line by Laura Riding Jackson)
“When openly these inmost sights
Flash and speak fully,
Each head at home shakes hopelessly
Of being never ready to see self
And sees a universe too soon.”
never ready to see self and sees a universe too soon
My head is shaking, hopelessly, Continue reading →