In Praise of Metaphysical Conceits

Today is the birthday of Andrew Marvell, probably most well known as the author of "To His Coy Mistress."

I love some of the images and metaphors that he uses. I love that they often go straight over the heads of my students, and I love pointing them out.

For example:

"Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chap't power."

I always say, "Really? Amorous birds of prey in a love poem? Really? Does anyone know how birds of prey mate?" Predatory birds having sex in free fall--not the image we typically associate with love poems.

Most of all, I love this image, which comes earlier in the poem:

"My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;"

Vegetable love--describe your love as a vegetable. Is carrot love better than broccoli love? Is rutabaga love a different kind of love than brussels sprouts love?

Ponder these questions as we prepare to leap into National Poetry Month (gulp!). Tomorrow I hope to post a list of 30 poetry writing prompts to keep us all inspired as we write a poem a day or cheer the ones who are making the attempt!

Thinking about Training Sessions, Webinars, and PowerPoints--Must They Always Be So Bad?

Yesterday I accomplished a work requirement: I watched a training session on my computer about sexual harassment. It took over 2 hours. I reminded myself that I was paid very well to sit and watch and then to take tests, but I found myself getting very frustrated. Can there really be people out there who do not know these things?

Part of the reason that all the managers at my worksite had to do this had nothing to do with us, of course. My workplace isn't trying to tell me that they think I'll be a sexual harasser if I don't get this training. I'm a manager, so if one member of my department harasses another or creates a hostile work environment, I'm culpable. If I don't take action, various people up the ladder are culpable. I get that.

I also understand that by making me watch this thing and take tests, the managers on up the ladder can say that they've done all that could be reasonably expected, should I screw up my managerial duties. And just because I create a zero tolerance workplace when it comes to sexual harassment, that doesn't mean that everyone will.

I should have just zipped over to this post on Kelli's blog and tried out some of her writing prompts. I'm such a good girl though. I really felt that I should pay attention.

As I paid attention, I thought, why are these things always so dreadful? Dean Dad has been asking similar questions here and here. The training session yesterday could have been worse. I've sat through far worse, with PowerPoint slides with no pictures and a droning voice reading the slides. The training session yesterday had still shots of people in harassing situations, along with some dialogue. Why not go the extra amount and insert some video--would that cost more?

I also found it disconcerting that the same people (I don't use the word actors, since they didn't act) were used as different characters. One guy is Julio and in another section, he's Mario. As a writer, it offended me. No reason to change names--he's clearly the same guy. And the creators of the training session were very careful to use a rainbow of people and to show that even women can sexually harass men--not much discussion of male on male or female on female harassment--we're not that up to date yet.

In retrospect, I could have turned the sound off and read the whole thing much more quickly. I know, however, that we were being monitored, and most people are doubtful of my speedy reading abilities. And we had to spend 2 hours on the project, and I didn't want to zip through it too quickly.

At least I don't live in California. California law requires managers to undergo sexual harassment training every 2 years.

In this post, Dean Dad pondered his own intolerance with webinars: "I don't think it's impatience on my part. I'm an academic administrator; if I hadn't built impressive boredom calluses by now, I would never have made it. I've listened to faculty emeriti tell war stories from nineteen-ought-six; I've stood in subfreezing weather for a solid hour listening to multiple politicians declare that they'd be remiss if they didn't thank still more people; I've parsed mission statements and outcomes assessment reports."

Maybe I just haven't built up my own boredom calluses. Even when I remind myself that I'm being paid impressively to sit through a training seminar, it still grates on me. Even when I remind myself that the fact that I've never been a victim of sexual harassment is due to several decades of these kind of training seminars being forced on people until the culture changed a bit, I still chafe. I know that the culture hasn't changed entirely, and that's why we must all suffer.

I look forward to the day when we all can take for granted that sexual harassment and/or creating a hostile work environment is reprehensible, and we would all no more harass each other than we would sexually abuse a 4 year old--alas, we're not there on the sexual harassment count, and there's still more sexual abuse of small children than I can comprehend.

The Last Person in America to Appreciate Lorrie Moore's Descriptive Powers

I had read a few of Lorrie Moore's short stories before I picked up A Gate at the Stairs; a few years ago, I read "The Kid's Guide to Divorce" and "How to Become a Writer." Based on those short stories, I thought of her as an interesting minimalist, witty certainly, but I'd have never put her on my list for best descriptive writers of our time.

I remember a colleague raving about Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, so I tried to read it in the mid 90's. I loved the witty title, and I wanted to fall in love with it, but I couldn't. I don't remember why.

I'm not very far along in my reading of A Gate at the Stairs, but I'm already enjoying it immensely. Here is how Moore's main character describes a French restaurant: "It was one of those expensive restaurants downtown, every entree freshly hairy with dill, every soup and dessert dripped upon as preciously as a Pollack, filets and cutlets sprinkled with lavender dust once owned by pixies . . . " (17).

A few pages before, she's described the best restaurant back in her hometown this way: "On Sunday's there was not only marshmallow and maraschino cherry salad and something called 'Grandma Jell-O,' but 'prime rib with au jus,' a precise knowledge of French--or English or even food coloring--not being the restaurant's strong point" (7).

And these examples are just the ones where Moore says a lot about restaurants with just a bit of description. I can't wait to see what's ahead!

I love the main character, a young college girl. I'm afraid she's going to have a very rough time, based on what I've read about other Lorrie Moore characters, but I'm willing to go along for this ride, especially if I continue to get such witty, wonderful descriptions of modern life.

Lessons from My Hot Glue Gun

Some of my most inept friends can use a hot glue gun. Small children can use a hot glue gun. Why can't I?

Yesterday was the kind of very bad day where I should have just gone back to bed at any number of times. It wasn't the kind of very bad day where anyone died or wrecked the car or something dramatic. No, it was just the kind of grinding bad day that we all get occasionally, the kind of day where things aren't quite right, and they don't righten at all during the day.

Spin class was blah. I didn't get enough sleep, not overnight and no naptime. I thought I would accomplish some art projects for the upcoming Create in Me retreat, and ended up feeling snarly about my husband, who said things like "Are you making a bird or a ghost?" Another attempt: "That looks like a fish. Or a rabbit."

I kept trying to make the day better, and kept failing miserably. I kept trying to use the hot glue gun, and kept burning myself and inanimate objects. I now have huge blisters on several fingers and my leg. I had to cut glue out of the carpet. Why didn't I quit while I was ahead?

Finally, at the end of the day, when nothing good was on T.V. (is anything good ever on T.V.?), we watched the late 80's miniseries Lonesome Dove, which we have on DVD. What a treat. It reminds me that my life is actually pretty good, even though I'm having a bad day (I'm fairly safe in my current life as a woman, unlike the characters in the movie; I don't have to struggle to eke out a living, like those characters). It's full of cowboy wisdom. It appeals to the side of myself that fell in love with Little House on the Prairie.

I might have salvaged the day if I had just put away my hot glue gun and taken a nap. Instead, I burned myself again and again. Most days, I'm better at knowing what I need and making sure I do some self-care. Yesterday, I wasn't. And now, I'll have some blisters to remind me of what I should have known all along.

Quarter's End

Last night, I went to Graduation. Many people complain about our obligation: we have four graduations a year.

But I like Graduation. I like being reminded that students can make it through. I often see them in crisis: as an English teacher, when they have trouble with Composition and as an administrator, when they have any other varieties of trouble. It's good to be reminded that students can and do overcome these difficulties. Yes, I know our grim national statistics of how few people make it to college at all, and how many fewer finish a degree. But on Graduation night, I celebrate the ones that persevere.

Occasionally, I enjoy other celebrations. Last night, one of our department's members was chosen as Honored Faculty, and I got to introduce her. Joy! I've served under a Chair who, in her later years, never, ever would have nominated any of us, and it began to affect morale, mine at least. It's a treat to be able to nominate faculty for the position.

Afterwards, I waited in my office for my Poetry students to drop off their final projects and work. I require them to assemble some sort of manuscript, and to be eligible for an A, they have to do more than just put together typed pages. I'm always amazed at what they create. I shouldn't be--they're art and design students, after all, and they have access to all sorts of technology. But I'm always delighted.

And now, once again, I have a quarter or two ahead of me where I'm not teaching. It's traditional for new Chairs at my school not to teach for the first year of the position, but I'll probably start teaching again sooner than that. It's good to be reminded of why Chairs serve.

A Good Southern Writer Is Hard to Find--at least one as Good as Flannery O'Connor

Today is Flannery O'Connor's birthday. She's one of my favorite writers, and I think she's the best short story writer ever. Yes, I said it. The Best. Not one of the best. The Best. Ever.

I'll wait here for you to protest. What about Chekhov? What about Poe? What about _______ (insert name of your favorite minimalist writer currently favorite with the writing crowd set)?

Nope. Flannery O'Connor's brilliance takes her to another level. Her stories are over half a century old now, and they still seem fresh, daring, and radically different. She's one of those rare writers who takes a form and shows us what that form could do. She explodes it and enriches it at the same time.

Go back to read "Good Country People." Hulga and the Bible salesman--no one alive is creating characters like those. And when you read the story, watch out for the so-called minor characters. Richly developed. Read "A Good Man is Hard to Find," and ponder that epiphany at the end. Oh, take the afternoon and read all the short stories. What else are you going to do with your time? Watch the useless television? Go grocery shopping? No, read Flannery O'Connor and prepare to be amazed.

I was first exposed to Flannery O'Connor through church, interestingly enough. In the late 70's, we had a campus minister who had an office and some duties in Charlottesville's Lutheran church. He had a degree (or was he only working on it then?) in Religion and Literature. He led a study of the stories of Flannery O'Connor, and my parents attended. My mom encouraged me to read those stories. I was hooked early, at age 14--who knew literature could be like that?

In the late 70's, O'Connor wasn't as highly regarded as she is now, but I knew nothing of literary reputations--well, I knew, but I didn't care. I liked what I liked. I'd read classics that were good for me, but I'd reread what I liked.

As I became an adult and lived in various Southern towns and cities, I became more interested in O'Connor's Catholic faith, and how it influenced her writing. I still am. One of the best books of literary criticism/biography I've read in a long time was Paul Elie's The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage, which looks at four prominent mid-20th century Catholic writers: O'Connor, Thomas Merton, Walker Percy, and Dorothy Day. I read it on a plane and couldn't put it down--it was that gripping.

O'Connor herself was a shrewd literary critic. All writers of all genres should read her nonfiction. There's precious little of it, so it won't take long, alas.

O'Connor's life was all too short, and it's amazing to think what she produced in the 14 years that she was dying of lupus. Or maybe it's not amazing. Maybe like Keats, she knew she had very little time, and she made the most of it.

This week has been one of those where I find it hard to write or to focus on anything at all--my focus is pulled to this thing, then the other, then the other. I'm feeling whipsawed. I'd like to claim a bit of doomedness--not because I want to be gloomy, but because for all of us, our time here is so short, and we will never create all that we could. If we started each day with that knowledge, how would we spend our time differently?

Thirtieth Anniversary of the Death of Archbishop Romero

I've had Archbishop Romero on the brain. I usually do this time of year, as the anniversary of his assassination approached. Today marks 30 years since he was killed as he consecrated the bread for Mass (or was it as he lifted the chalice? I've read both).

He had been appointed to the position of Archbishop because Vatican leaders thought he wouldn't be any trouble. But when his good friend, an activist Jesuit priest, was killed by a death squad, Romero decided that he needed to take up his friend's work.

He advocated for the poor and talked about the hazards of the huge disparity of wealth in the country. He called upon the police and the soldiers to stop killing their brothers and sisters. And because he was vocal in his support of the poor and dispossessed, because he criticized those in power, he was killed.

When I arrived at undergraduate school, I didn't know anything about this story. In 1984, I was asked to help lead a worship service that commemorated the life of the recently martyred archbishop. Thus continued my political education, an education begun when I saw the movie Missing. I would spend much of the 1980's horrified by what my country helped bring about in Latin America.

I remember when some of the U.S. government documents about Central America in the 1980's began to be declassified in the late 1990's, and again I felt horror in realizing that the oppression, supported, and in some cases engineered by my government, was actually worse than activists from the time period told us. I remember reading of cases of political activists thrown alive out of airplanes. All torture makes my brain recoil; I don't know why those cases stand out for me.

I thought about making myself read all those documents, but decided against it. There's only so much awfulness my brain can handle at any given time.

As the Romantics did, I wrestle with how much of the current political scene should find its way into my poems. One of my favorite undergraduate teachers flatly declared that political poetry could never be any good, and her words haunt me. Some of my favorite poems that I wrote during the 1980's show a radical poet contemplating the horrors of Central America, but I doubt they will be my best work when all is said and done. I'm still fond of my poems that use images of nuclear war and weapons in interesting ways, but will they be considered my best work? Hard to know.

In the end, I think it's best to follow whatever images haunt my brain at the time and to look for interesting connections. Let future critics sort out the rest.