Ridiculous similes that speak alarmingly true to life

In the most recent episode of Family Guy, Brian (yes, the dog) told a ditzy text-messaging girl that he wrote a book. She stared blankly into her phone then looked up briefly to ask what a book is. He said it was like a long magazine. Seeing she was still confused, he told her "it's like the internet made out of a tree."

As funny and ridiculous as this is, it speaks alarmingly true to the current state of literacy in our country. Most of my students, if they do enjoy to read, have only read Twilight or the SparkNotes versions of books they have been assigned over the past few years in school.

Never have they ventured to the library and ransacked the thousands- to- millions of books waiting for their imaginations. Most of them would be content to read nothing at all and write nothing at all. Most don't see the point to it, especially since they are convinced (and this is a quote the majority of two of my classes agreed with) that "newspapers don't matter nowadays. We can just watch TV. We don't have to read anymore."

Have we really become so technologically independent and dependent that we're foregoing reading and newspapers have become obsolete? If so, have reporting, researching, investigation and discovery also become outdated and obsolete? Many would argue so, especially in my grades.

Hopefully this can be reversed somehow. Perhaps our technology is already growing beyond our bounds. We know that many stores are foregoing any other type of advertising and focusing solely on the internet as the media outlet to grab the most potential customers, but newspapers are updating news online, but most do not charge a subscription fee to view their news.

Are they just gypping themselves? Are they on a downward spiral into bankruptcy and eventually antiquity?

The implications for this particularly pertain to me, though. As an English teacher, had I been teaching in the 1980s I might have made the argument for any student who wanted to be a newspaper reporter, that they need to pay particular attention to class and much excel at writing, editing and researching. Nowadays, my students wonder aloud when they will ever need to know researching skills, and why newspapers are still around, and why we don't allow them to use their computers and/or phones in the classroom?

Should we allow computers and phones in the classroom as tools to enhance the classroom? What about augment the traditional classroom in favor of one solely based on the internet and in technology? Should magazines, the internet, and other resources be focused upon instead of novels and textbooks?

If our students refuse to pick up a book because it 1) takes too long to read 2) is boring 3) doesn't make sense, have we failed as teachers or have we moved the base point somewhere to the sides? Do teachers need to change the way we teach because the culture has changed, or should we fight it and try to save reading and literacy in a culture which seems to care less about intelligence and expression and more about entertainment and indifference?

If I read a book and no one is around to see me read it, was it ever read?

Seeing Everything in Poetry

When I first rode the T last Friday, coming from South Station into Cambridge for the first time since mid-January, I was struck with a sense of remembrance for the extreme promise and excitement I felt when living and learning within this mecca of intelligence, artistry and literature.

True, Cambridge is one of the main literary centers of the world, and Boston-Cambridge-MetroWest is one of the most literate and well-read areas of the world, but just coming off the T into this world is like entering a totally new world. It's shape is different--Victorians juxtaposed with crowded streets, MIT and Harvard students ambling from building to building, runners and dog walkers stuffing the sidewalks, and casual tourists snapping photos of everything they deem noteworthy or photo-worthy.

My problem though is seeing everything in poetry. The scream of the T as it slides from track to track between stops is poetic. As is the homeless man who holds a sign in the opposite direction, but his half-full can in mine (intentional on both counts). Everything seems to breathe life into me--into my poetry. I'm feeling unbridled and too jittery (and not just from the coffee) to sit still in seminars. I want to be in a writing circle right now.

If we were forced into a room to write for 12 hours--given some food and beverages here and there--it could be one of the most successful half-days of my life. Poetry is nearly tangible here. Metaphor is palpable (also a metaphor).

And in living this life, I'm left wondering how much of this I can take before I stop paying attention to what's happening around me and start focusing again solely on my work? Will my concentration continue unabated (not as it did last year when I was laid off immediately after the residency and had my world upended violently) for a full year (as I plan to defer my next semester because of full-time teaching)?

All I can do is hope this feeling stays with me and I continue to see everything in terms of poetry. My mind seems sharper and more intelligent while I'm here. I feel like less is impossible.

It's a treat to be able to be here and to have the opportunity to write for not only a hobby, but potentially a career, as being a great reader and writer can only make a trained teacher a better teacher.

I learn more each moment I am here and feel guilty for taking a five minute break right now to blog. Yes, I feel compelled and/or obligated to report on my status, but I feel the same way about returning to my notebook of five recently begun poems, and trying to hammer another few before I focus for an hour on them tonight on the train.

This residency is cathartic, uplifting, invigorating and fulfilling. It's the type of environment I wish I could be surrounded in everyday--is this how I'll feel teaching? How literature and/or writing teachers feel? If being surrounded by learning, writing and literature can feel this fulfilling and 'perfect,' I hope I can only be as lucky as to experience it everyday for the remainder of my life.

The blogger as a newspaper columnist

I can't help but consider, in this new age of information technology and declining newspaper readership, if the job of "Columnist" is simultaneously more outdated than other other, yet more relevant than any other.

For a traditional newspaper, the relevant and/or crucial jobs are few and far between, and clearly, an opinion job is less crucial than say a beat reporter given the inside knowledge into court cases, town budget meetings, etc.--elements which are hard to come by for the traditional news buff or for the internet to grasp ahold of before the hard-hitting investigators. Especially if this person is able to break some national story or conspiracy, etc., which has been the essential task of true journalism for centuries.

Therefore, I think it's fair to assume that the job of the columnist--a frequent opinion or reflective area of the newspaper--is a dying art form when it comes to traditional newspaper publishing.

But in the overall scheme of things, there is no more relevant job. To a newspaper struggling to sell copies, it might bring in a few more readers, but placing these same opinions online brings in a much larger and more diverse readership, and therefore, more profits. Perhaps newspapers would be more likely to profit from columnists if the columns were online instead of some online and the majority in print? It might seem a bit radical, but then again, the times we live in mirror this assumption pretty well.

Which brings me to the catalyst for this post: am I not a columnist? I believe I am.

I am a columnist without a newspaper. Much like 'the man without a country,' except I do feel I belong, but to the world, much like to the world wide web. So is everyone who has a blog in all actuality a columnist? Well, if the writing and ideas are focused enough and not all skewed about everything and anything, then perhaps, yes, everyone is a columnist if they are a blogger.

My column would clearly be about the world I live in--that of poetry, literature, teaching, facts, current events, and the exciting things I encounter either in person or over the internet. If newspapers were still popular and were hiring in a healthy economy with a populous focused on reading as much as possible, I would without hesitation place a link to my blog on an application.

If online readership can translate into success for a newspaper, any s mart editor or publisher would grasp onto that columnist immediately.

But is the job of the columnist dead entirely--as it relates to newspaper publishing? I don't think so. There are still many people who buy a newspaper solely to read the comments, opinions and insights of their favorite columnists--and more specialized columnists, who refuse to go viral, can still maintain a healthy following through newspaper readership.

I do, however, believe the future holds an online presence (almost solely) for columnists as a way to reach a much wider and diverse audience. The issues can be more widespread, the focus can be honed, deadlines can be extended, entries can be more plentiful, and insight can be just as keen and challenging to any status quo.

Where in the World...

Have I been?

Well, since beginning the after-school program, the majority of my time each day is now taken up with writing/reading and heading to/traveling back from/and being within the confines of the B&G Club and entertaining 50+ 6-13 year-olds for four and a half hours each day. It's an exciting experience though and definitely preparative for future teaching, even if the students I'll have in t-minus 3.5 months(!!) will be 14+.

Nevertheless, I have been able to crank through a serious number of poetry books taken out from the library, have finished re-reading Angels and Demons and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for their upcoming film releases, have skimmed Addonizio's new Ordinary Genius, which I am nearly finished with, but will ultimately end up purchasing and using as a resource I'm sure, and have been writing as much as possible to send out a huge packet of work to my new mentor soon. Urgh...how convoluted some of this work can be, and what a tax these hoops to jump through for the program are. Some of the program is very tedious in comparison to the unleashed creativity allowed during other parts.

This weekend we went out to a club lounge where a live band was playing, and although the band was good, the club, which was referred to as more upscale and had a distinctly more mature crowd at it, still left a lot to be desired and wasn't my cup of tea. Then there was a massive cookout with lots of delicious food and microbrews, as well as some very funny stories. Then last night K and I went to pick up a friend of ours at the airport after midnight(!), which needless to say is causing me to be a bit sleepy and scatterbrained today. It took me 15 minutes (on and off) to remember the word tedious...

In other news, Dan Brown has finally announced his new book and its release date (of course to coincide with the release of Angels & Demons to theatres, so I suppose I should have anticipated this strategic move...): The Lost Symbol will come out on September 15 of this year and will be the third book in Robert Langdon saga, no doubt giving Tom Hanks another opportunity to question his stance on religion and his unfair designation as a symbol of atheism to many in the Catholic world.

Must get back to writing and to some follow-up phone calls to ensure that I squeeze every moment from this day that I possibly can become I have to be off in kid-land.

Tomorrow I will be visiting Bacon Academy (my Alma Mater) to teach some lessons on poetry to some of the cherubs (kids), and then I will swing over to Bolton High School to see the teachers and to wish my former mentor a farewell as she heads into retirement, and then finally home for a quick dinner before driving another 85 miles back to Attleboro. Whew!

Anticipation Reading

In anticipation for Angels and Demons coming to theatres next week, and with magazine writing coming to an end, I finally have enough time to split between reading/writing poetry and other creative writing endeavours, and rereading Angels and Demons and A Confederacy of Dunces. I'd say it's about time that I stepped up my game when it comes to the breadth of novels I've read (and more importantly, remembered).

Last week during one of my interviews, the interviewer knew the main characters from Rats Saw God, another one of my favorite books, though one that for years I've considered to be relatively obscure to completely unknown when it came to schools other than Bacon/NFA. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case any longer.

Now the interviewers know all of the 'reserve' books that for years have been recommended to me to know when being interviewed for a teaching job. I have a lot of reading to do, which may seem more recreational than anything else, but it's actually a lot of work....though fun work!