Cat Stevens - Where Do The Children Play (live)

Relieved to have moved past Eliot and Pound and on to William Carlos Williams. So I will reflect tonight between classes I'm teaching on his slogan, "no ideas but in things." I can tell he ended up feeling that Pound and Eliot were too attached to European cultures and religion. Apparently he is associated with not only Pound in friendship but with several Black Mountain poets.

I found Eliot's "The Wasteland" interesting if not weighty, but agree that all of the allusions make it mostly undecipherable to a contemporary audience [according to a friend]. It is refreshing to read Williams, and I can't help wonder if my preference for Williams is rooted in my socio-economic status. Who has time to linger with Pound or Eliot? Is this just laziness on my part? I don't think so. We choose what we do with out time carefully, since our time is so limited and fleeting we choose what brings us pleasure, and William's "The Red Wheelbarrow" has always seemed so academic and pretentious, yet today I feel differently. I love that he embraces American idiom. I like that Williams was concerned with diversity and representing the poor and lower to middle economic classes.

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Reading Wallace Steven's "Anecdote of the Jar," "Sunday Morning," and "The Snow Man" with more appreciation than I have in the past.

At a coffee shop in Old Town Arvada. Wondering if and when I will start writing again. I don't have internet access where I'm staying, and I am teaching a lot of classes. My printer is broken too, so maybe working some place like a coffee shop on a few poems at a time and sending them out via online submissions is the way to go. I don't do well with the noise in coffee shops lately. I suppose I will go to the library from now on since it is more quiet.

A friend last night went on a wonderful rant about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes and demanded to know why she had to endlessly study Eliot and Pound in school. Her arguments were compelling and passionate. Basically, she can't understand why Pound and Eliot are excessively studied. Whereas Plath was labeled as a nut by the Hughes'--- that's what a friend was saying. In grad school, conservative program grad school, the men I studied with defended Hughes and saw him as a victim of feminists everywhere.

I'm reading "The Wasteland" in a rather noisy Starbucks. Yes, corporate coffee sucks. I usually go to a coffee shop in Arvada, but I didn't want to drive out there since all I mostly do during the week is drive.

I am trying to decipher the poem, or at least understand it beyond its shifting voices, shifting speakers and apocalyptic tone at times. Lots of sexuality too. Suffering people become "hooded hoards swarming" and unreal cities are destroyed and rebuilt. Women are once again depicted as neurotic, pathetic and aging disgustingly. I'm wondering now how I was ever a literature major. But I do think more wannabe poets should read a wide breadth of literature beyond contemporary voices of color. There, I said it. I say this while being uncomfortable with "The Wasteland". The disintegration of the culture that Eliot saw is so similar to what people sense today about our culture. It is slowly deteriorating and we look back to the classics for a sense of strength and security? No, mostly people ignore the classics and focus on those many marginalized voices outside the canon. I think this is dangerous. Yet, I think those voices should be read as well.

So I'm reflecting on themes I've read exist in the poem and find it interesting yet overwhelming, much the same way I come to and leave Pound. Exhausted. I have to read it more slowly somewhere where it is quiet.

I'm trying to prepare for a 1:00 comp class and am in a rush as usual. I am literally driving all over the Denver metroplex to get to classes. I'm enjoying classes immensely if not the actual driving to and fro.

Today we discussed Pound and a bit of Eliot in the lit class. I have very, very bright students.

This afternoon I'll have students do some group work over an essay they have read and possibly have a discussion about whether or not torture is acceptable punishment in response to terrorism.

Next semester I may only teach two classes. I need to not be carried away into teaching so many classes. It was hard to say no to a lit class, but in the end I hope like a fool to teach a creative writing workshop again some day. I am adhering to someone else's syllabus which makes it a bit difficult, but I am learning a great deal and enjoying the students.


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Pound. I have given his poems more thought recently than I ever have before and despite not liking him as an undergraduate, I find him interesting, but the heavy allusions and references make him a difficult read.

I'm going to lunch with a friend now.

Hehe.

I've been thinking about politics overriding artistic merit and thinking that tastes is simply individualistic, yet I am constantly pulled into believing there is good art and bad art, not low and high, but good and bad. Are my ideas about what is good simply a result of my education? No, I often disagreed with professors. Poetry is a complex thing, and history reveals the oppression of various voices, yet I am writing an essay for ABR re: when politics overtakes craft, sort of a case study on contemporary Latino/a poetry or more specifically Mexican-American poetry. I'm asked to report on what is "good" in Chicana/Mexican-American Poetry. And what is poetry or Chicana poetry? Books published by Chicanas, online ranting, what's anthologized?

In any case, I will write this essay because I promised to write it. I'm grappling with it now, but yes, I believe there is "good" work and bad work and I can't get around that I think this despite believing in inclusion. I just wish "good" work was noted.

And then again maybe my idea of what is good is off, but I think some poems are simply bland, simply political, simply journalistic reporting rooted most often in political rage.

I picked up an American Lit course which I'm excited about, but I'm a little overwhelmed as I also have 4 comp courses, but it should turn out okay. In any case, I'm very busy right now and am not sure I'll have much time to blog and as they say blogging is dead. I don't think it's really dead. I also have had a number of good things occur which I'll report here in due time. I will attempt to be more literary and more snobbish ;)

In any case, maybe I'll ponder what I'm reading and discuss it here. I'm taking the class over for someone who needs administrative course release, so I'm very excited to be teaching lit. again. I'll be using THE HEATH ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. SIXTH EDITION. VOLUMES C, D AND E.

Once again I get to struggle with Auraria campus parking. :( Oh well, I'm happy to deal with it as I am thrilled to be on that campus again for a time.