Will not teach for cash

Time for a new post. . . .

This morning, I received a startling email. I subscribe to a Creative Writing listserv that announces writing contests, calls for submissions, and teaching jobs. This particular digest included an ad for a creative writing instructor at Centenary College.  The ad goes like this:

"Instructor wanted for 2-credit poetry writing course for the fall semester (September through December, 2009) at, Hackettstown, NJ. MFA required. The course meets once a week for approximately two hours. Salary $900. Centenary College is in the process of developing a creative writing minor. We anticipate ongoing teaching opportunities."

As quickly as my eyes widened at the "poetry instructor wanted: Centenary College" line, they also calmed down because I know that there are two Centenary Colleges in these United States (the "Jewel of the South" where I teach and the other one in New Jersey).  But still.

So I sent this to my husband, who did the following math (which, notably, does not even account for taxes):

Let's see, 18 weeks x 3 hours class per week. Plus 1 hour prep and 1 hour grading for every hour in class. No travel if you taught via video alongside your normal Creative Writing course this fall. That makes this offer approximately $5.56/hour. Of course, since the pay is capped, there is a natural disincentive to doing a good job if that means spending more time. What they're really offering, in economic terms, is a minimum wage job with a singular price floor/ceiling and an incentive for the employee to do a poor job.

Right.

I'm reminded of the advice we MFAs received at the University of Florida from the tenured prof who provided the massive lectures for Technical Writing: 400 students in the live lecture on Monday nights, 100-200 more in the video replays that happened at least two other nights a week.  We MFAs served as his teaching assistants, instructing the smaller "lab" sessions (18 students in a computer lab where we practiced whatever writing that week's lecture covered).

The prof told us very frankly that if we excelled as teachers of those labs, we were wasting our time and working too hard: that we weren't being paid enough to be great teachers and that our main task was to do our own graduate work. Therefore, he expected us all to be mediocre as TAs.

Once, I remember having an issue with a particular student, and I asked the prof about it; he advised me well about what to do but also starkly told me where to draw the line, reminding me that to be mediocre got his praise but to go the extra mile got his disapproval. This is partly because he didn't think the students were worth the trouble (the good ones would figure it out despite my mediocrity) but mostly because he didn't think it was really my job. 

He had a point or two there.

Looks like Centenary @ Hackettstown should expect the same kind of mediocrity.  Even poets should know better than to work for that pay.

Share the Road

There's a whole lot interesting about Motoko Rich's "Literacy Debate: R U Really Reading" in the New York Times. This first installment in a series on digital versus print explores the generational reading gaps in a family of four. The header photo says it all: dad reads the paper, mom curls up with a novel, kids glow in front of their Mac laptops. It's a Gnostic paradise, gathering for family togetherness time but each one engaging a separate activity. The children more distant still, they practice the subtle art of "social networking" and "interactive fiction" from the safe confines of a virtual reality.

And in this article, we read about young Nadia, the melancholy would-be poet, the product of her technological age.

I recognize the irony of my embedded complaint. I read the story online because we don't take any newspaper at the house. I'm logging my complaint about it online in my unkempt blog. But I spent the morning unpacking cherished books and reading from two others (not to mention children's books): real books with glue and binding and pages. Some of the unpacked books include ones self-published by Great-great-great-aunt Laura Crews, whose words aren't online for young Nadia to ever encounter, much less change.

Maybe I'm just an old Romantic who shares with my husband an affection for the smell and look and texture of books. Maybe I'm an elitist who still believes that old adage that to write well one must be a good and generous reader. (Apparently, one must now qualify this remark by saying that a writer must not only be a reader but a reader of books, including old ones.) If so, I hope to remain this kind of elitist Romantic for a very long time.

My own flaws on this front are too numerous to mention, though I must to continue: in short, I have not read nearly so many books as I own, nor do I read or write as much as I should. So it is not the high-standing achiever who laments Nadia's story; rather, it is the struggling imperfection in me that longs to be a better reader and writer and cannot stand to lower the standards.

"What about Nadia's story has got you so worried?" you ask. Two things:

1. She prefers online fiction because she can change it to suit her own interests and desires.
2. She wants to be a writer.

Regarding #1. Some might say that she's really getting into the story, interacting with it, so what's the problem? But whatever happened to the authorial craft? Whatever happened to catharsis? Whatever happened to reading as an experiment in something different from what you already know and want? I too have wanted to change stories I have read (haven't we all?) but I don't have the liberty to do so, and that's part of what lets fiction do its job. That is, fiction forces us into uncomfortable situations that we then must work through; we are the readers, not the writers.

For example, I would love to make Willoughby less of a lout, because there's something about him that I love too, but I don't have the liberty because Austen made him that complex lout, and there's a beauty in that for the reader: I have to deal with his complexity and not just change his narrative line to suit my interests. Sounds like real life.

Now, regarding #2. What about Nadia's desire to be a writer? Scratch that; she's already a published writer online, having authored a story with a misspelling in the title. Grammar fail.

Nadia would like to be an English major but "does not see a problem with reading few books. 'No one’s ever said you should read more books to get into college,' she said." Something in my gut hurts, and bad, every time I read that paragraph.

Please give me one good reason why someone who does not want to read books should major in English. Perhaps you would offer that such a person should major in English because she wants to write. Good: then she must also read . . . books. Want to be a poet? Read poetry books. New ones and old ones, very old ones. On my desk right now are several books of poetry, half by living poets and half by dead ones. There's also a tab open in my internet browser with another living writer's poem, linked to an audio recording. Just because you are a human being with emotions and an affection for language does not make you a poet. (Of course, having poetry books on your desk and a poem open in a tab does not necessarily make you a poet either.)

If English ever becomes a major without that kind of reading, I don't want to teach it anymore. And if writers ever quit reading books, I don't want to try to be a writer anymore.

Ms. Rich does a fine job in her article of responding to Nadia's comment that college entrance does not require reading books. After all, she may be right. But Ms. Rich writes, "The simplest argument for why children should read in their leisure time is that it makes them better readers." Statistics prove that's good for college entrance exams and future employment. The history of humankind proves it's also good for general life.

Last weekend, I attended a conference on classical education, where we chanted the glory of helping children think about ideas rather than merely learn how to test well. So maybe my conscience is particularly pricked toward the true, the good, the beautiful; since that conference, I have felt more keenly my love for books and ideas than for my Mac. True, I've spent more time today with online pages than printed and bound ones, but I still love them more, partly because they last, and I think every writer should.

Conferences

After long silence, I must report the following:

1. We've moved, which is mostly the reason for the silence. Orange carpet is up, hardwoods are stained. Pictures, maybe, will follow.
2. Next week, I'm attending the Circe Conference in Houston. Apparently, I'll be joining there geeks of the highest rhetorical order. I offer as evidence for this claim the fact that the Circe Institute recommends the following clip as humor:
   
   
   


3. This fall, I've had a paper accepted at a regional Christianity and Literature conference, and I'm pumped about it. To increase the pump, yesterday I received an email informing me that I will present that paper in one of two panels entitled "Christianity and Eros," and they asked me to chair the other panel of the same title. Woot!
   

An abstract

In case anyone is curious, here's the abstract I submitted last week for hopeful presentation at the southwest regional Christianity and Literature conference this October. The paper is already drafted (written originally for possible presentation at an earlier conference) but I'll revise it if the abstract is selected for this. Here goes.

Tell Me a Story: Redemptive History as the Overwhelming Narrative of Self and Sexuality

Human beings create community with narrative, and we do so because we were created in the image of a storyteller. We seek inspiration and self-exploration in various ecologies, but we finally resort to story for our own self definitions and group delineations, and those stories either resonate or conflict with the infinitely renewed nonlinear narrative of redemptive history God has been writing since before the foundations of the world. All our smallest narratives thus point us either toward or away from our creation and toward the communion we were designed to have with God himself. So we continually tell the story of how and why we came to be, especially regarding human sexuality.

In this paper, I suggest that we can only understand human sexuality when we order it according to God's overwhelming redemption story. Alice McDermott's Child of My Heart provides a good case study: the sexual fate of the novel's protagonist seems inevitable due to the wrong self-story she has adopted. Without any governing narrative of identity and purpose, without the order that God's redemptive narrative should provide her, Theresa loses herself in a false story of bodily autonomy that she, her parents, her neighbors, and her culture write easily and often about human sexuality. Theresa's wrong self-story, rooted in a wrong God-story, makes McDermott's novel a perfect example of the great stakes in the human narrative.

Indeed, we do violence to ourselves and to all human beings when we avoid or ignore our most essential story, the one that the sovereign God wrote us into and for, when we get the story about human sexuality wrong. Thus, writers of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and sermons must continue investigating deliberately and complexly the story of human sexuality, which is only ordered rightly by God's all-consuming redemptive narrative. After all, we humans will tell stories, so we might as well tell the right one: human sexuality and indeed human beings themselves depend on it.

Women in Christianity and Islam

Weekend before last, I served as co-leader of a discussion on "Women in Christianity and Islam" for a Christian-Muslim Relations program organized by the Christian Leadership Center at Centenary. What glorious fun. And it left me with much to think about regarding biblical womanhood, the grace of God through Jesus Christ, compassionate ministry, and real faithfulness. Maybe some other things too. But in an effort to at least post some bits about this, here are some lessons I learned from the experience:

1) Lesson: putting a face to those who don't love Jesus as the Redeemer is a blessed thing indeed. It was a true blessing for me personally to meet and dialogue with the Muslim convert who served as the other co-leader for our session (let's call her Asna). She is a learned woman and I look forward to developing a friendship with her.

2) Lesson: regarding womanhood and faith, I have more in common with Muslims than with most Christians. That is, as a complementarian Christian (one who believes that men and women are co-equal in creation and redemption but distinct in role), I have way more in common with Asna and Muslims like her at least regarding the roles of men and women than I do with egalitarian American Christians. Asna seemed intrigued to learn that the idea of gender distinction is in the Christian Bible too, and that at least I would say that the Biblical ethic is adamant that no sex or type of person has inherent second-class status to anyone else, that we are all equally depraved and then also, in Christ, equally redeemed.

3) Lesson: the issue of women and faith might serve as an entry point for interfaith ministry. My presentation just hinted at the distinctions between complementarian and egalitarian views in Christianity, and Asna's just hinted at the issues relevant to women and Islam. Both of us had lots more we could have said, and our "audience" engaged interestingly; I am hopeful that we might see more discussion on precisely this topic in the future.

For example, Asna was rather intrigued to hear that the Bible does talk about head coverings for women, that the idea of veiling as such is not completely foreign to the Christian Bible. She wants a copy of the notes I made for my talk so that she can check out the New Testament scriptures I noted; she is eager to share these with so-called Christians who stop her in Wal-Mart and think she's nuts for wearing full burkha. I chuckled at the idea of a veiled Muslim woman challenging the biblical illiteracy of so-called Christians in the grocery check-out line.

4) Lesson: genuine understanding is an important entry point for interfaith ministry. The whole program, though it featured interfaith prayer and a panel discussion where Muslims and Christians called one another brother, was no kumbayah session of inarticulate pluralistic doctrine. Now, to be sure, many of those present (though the crowd was very small in general) definitely thought that, but that was not the overt theme of things. Rather, the overt theme seemed to be respect for theological distinctions even if they are not reconcilable; the general call was one of peaceful dialogue, which I dare say we should all welcome.

5) Lesson: be a person of your book. The last imam to speak in the panel discussion called all of us there to be people of our books, earnestly living out what righteousness we read there. He repeated it often, the importance of our books. At our church, we take this for granted, that Christians determine to live in faithfulness to God's revelation in His Word, and maybe we forget that it's not an altogether common belief among so-called Christians in general.

In "our book" we Christians will hear the call to humble but urgent ministry, to radical acts of love, to passionate and thoughtful relationship . . . all through serious attention to the supremacy of Jesus over all things. But most of the "Christians" in attendance that day wouldn't have agreed with that last part. At my lunch table, two women actually dismissed the idea of original sin as not in the Bible at all "unless you read Genesis literally" but as a mere fiction of the Catholic church. I was so baffled that I could not compose a reply. Later, they were surprised to hear that I actually believed Jesus is the only way, truth, and life, and that no one comes to the Father but by Him. I'm still confused as to how someone could call herself a Christian and not believe that.

But the point here is that I think we may find in our local Muslim community people who are willing to dialogue about what God has actually said; the larger Christian community locally may not, ironically, be as interested in that. Oh the urgency of speaking compassionate truth to those around us who claim to be Christians as well!

6) Lesson: hanging around people who sincerely believe they must work hard to earn God's reward will sure highlight the preciousness of God's powerful grace through Jesus. The experience of being with these earnest Muslims made me recall with awe at so many points that Jesus died to make so many of the things they desire available to sinners like me completely and freely. He has set us free from bondage to sin! His Holy Spirit empowers us to walk in righteousness! I cannot begin to describe, then, the renewed joy in my own heart: our Jesus is indeed unique, precious, exalted, and good.

Perhaps more on observations from that day and beyond later. But for now, I have an assignment from one of my students to write a 10- to 15-line poem in trimeter. I have two lines:

Cheap bread and pickled fish:
a side dish, not a meal.

Now for eight more and something for them to say. . . .

Swimming lessons with Seeger

"But what about the kitty cats?" asks a little one.

Pointing to the picture of the people clinging to the rocks (see below), say, "These children asked a lot of questions, too—and look what happened to them!"


Then close with prayer: "God, please don’t cover the earth with water ever again. Some of us don’t know how to swim yet. Amen."

Ah, biblical teaching for children at its best. For more ludicrous game ideas and inspiring curriculum, see Rejected Sunday School Lessons: Totally Inappropriate Ideas for Working with Children. And please let's all chip in and get Rev. Segner a copy.

I think I'm having visions; it's a world like this one but with awesome grammar.

The New York Times is officially neat-o. For all you semicolon lovers out there, here's an article for you: a story about a real-life punctuation hero.

You'll think it can't be, that this must be some fiction crafted by Lynne Truss or maybe a trusty follower; you'll think that follower could be me. But no, it's a real writer in a real city with a real writerly job doing writerly hero work; he knows a "pretentious anachronism" when he sees one, and he holds it up for all the train riders to learn.

So, a raised glass for Mr. Neches, please, and for all his winking friends.

A poetry list

Here's a list inspired by Arthur Jackson from the poetry catalogued on my Library Thing library (I started to do just books, but that was too hard). I started a list of prose too, but that was also too hard; I need to divide by genre or else the list is off balance.

An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Brazilian Poetry edited by Elizabeth Bishop
The Bacchae of Euripides: A New Version by CK Williams
or (if drama is cheating)
Bertolt Brecht: Poems 1913-1956 by Bertolt Brecht
Collected Earlier Poems by Anthony Hecht and Complete Poems of John Donne
Desert Fathers, Uranium Daughters by Debora Greger
Elizabeth Bishop: The Complete Poems 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop
Four Quartets by TS Eliot
Glass, Irony, and God by Anne Carson
Homecoming: New and Collected Poems by Julia Alvarez
I
J
K
Looking for Trouble by Charles Simic
Mysticism for Beginners by Adam Zagajewski
New and Collected Poems by Richard Wilbur and The Nerve: Poems by Glyn Maxwell
The Odyssey by Homer
A Part of Speech by Joseph Brodsky and The Portable Milton by John Milton
Q
Robert Browning's Poetry by Robert Browning
Second Space: New Poems by Czeslaw Milosz
The Urizen Books by William Blake
View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems by Wislawa Szymborska
The Whole Motion by James Dickey and WH Auden: Selected Poems by WH Auden
X
You Come Too: Favorite Poems for Readers of All Ages by Robert Frost
Z

In commas and other news

I'm in heaven: my Advanced Rhetoric, Grammar, and Composition class has attracted some geeks of first rank. And here's a story about how I know that.

Yesterday, we were discussing the glories of the short sentence: pithy rhythm-changing attention-grabber, etc. And we considered examples in Richard Wright's "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch," which, by the way, is a terrific essay. My gut felt all strung out after reading it again before class; every time I read it, in fact, I lose a little more gut. And that is very good. Not in a physical dieting way but in a metaphorical way.

Anyway, we were considering short sentences in Wright's essay, a portion of which I was reading aloud for the class. At one point, I interrupted myself, as I often do, to make some stylistic observation about the power of one particular short sentence and followed my comment with, "Amen?" meant more as an inside joke with myself than anything else.

But lo and behold, several members of the class responded with a resounding, "Amen!" which made me want to quit right there and just giggle. But then the hilarity of the moment would really have been lost; it would have only nerdy rather than nerdy funny. So we had to just leave it at that, the amen-ers among us amused, the non-amen-ers confused and/or possibly annoyed.

Isn't that a beautiful story?

Moral Compass

This is sure to offend and worry, but I'd like to hereby champion this small but reasonable blog post about The Golden Compass.  

Let us celebrate the imagination and guard our children with active instruction, not knee-jerk boycott.  Let every Christian be a cultural critic and a public philosopher, engaging the world (the kosmos) with compassion and information and wisdom . . . not an uninformed grinch or a prudish fearmonger, avoiding the world with anxiety and control and faithlessness.

Nobel, what?

Except for the fact that Al Gore's latest prize is surely putting a damper on my mother's European cruise (watch out! says Mr. Tony) I have had more interest in Doris Lessing's too-long expected Nobel win than in any other Nobel-related news in any recent memory. Here's one reason:

And here's another:


But I haven't even read any Lessing! Must remedy that.

Too clean

Because I only used the word "hurt" once and no other potentially racy word ever, my blog has been rated G. I'm a little disappointed. Maybe if I quoted my grandmother more often, I could up the rating some.

Maybe one day I'll become a librarian

Apparently, it's now cool to be a librarian. Kara Jesella's recent New York Times piece "A Hipper Crowd of Shushers" confirms that information fluency isn't just for geeks. Or at least that geeks can sometimes do cool things, like get tattoos and order drinks according to their Dewey Decimal book-title equivalence?

Some people have too much stuff in their brains.

Another guest post, this time from Auntie Vicki

Since my no-blog mom tagged herself, I decided to tag another non-blogger: my aunt Vicki. Here they are together in a photo from last Christmas, Vicki on the left looking rather like their father, and my mom on the right looking rather like their mother (Santa hats notwithstanding):
I don't think anyone will mind my saying that this guest post comes not merely from my aunt but from Noel's third grandmother, insofar as she does a great deal of mothering toward him and is generally grand. So, enjoy these 8 random facts about my aunt Vicki, guest-written by my aunt Vicki:

1. I love books. Not just the words in them, although that is like unlocking a mystery, but I love the feel and look of books. I love the shape of books. I love the adventure of books. I love the anticipation of starting a new book – the hope that it will quickly engage me. Then, when it does and I can’t wait to get to the end, I’m so excited about the next book – not always knowing what it will be. Excited, yet at the same time, apprehensive – because maybe it won’t grab me. But – they most always do! And, thanks to Jen, I love librarything.com – there I can see all my books at one time – the art of the covers and the comfort of their existence.
2. I love mornings. I love the beauty of God’s creation – the way the light comes through the trees in my back yard; the song of the birds as they welcome the day and welcome me into it. I can’t wait for those days when the weather is kind enough to allow me to I throw open my windows and welcome the promise of a new day, a new opportunity. Even rainy, overcast days – I love the mornings!
3. I’ve recently rediscovered that I love mowing and weed eating! There is something soothing about the monotony of those straight lines and the smell of the freshly cut grass. If that by itself wasn’t enough – then I edge. Oh my, the wonder of a freshly cut edge where the grass meets the concrete! In addition to the beauty and zen-ness of the mowing, there is that little bit of righteousness I feel about actually breaking a sweat and “exercising” – while doing something that gives me pleasure in and of itself!
4. I fear heights. When living in California, I seriously could not consider taking a job that would require me to be higher than the third floor (although I did once work on the fourth floor – with constant trepidation). The Seattle Space Needle – no way. The new bridge over the floor of the Grand Canyon – kill me now! I once was invited to dinner at the top of one of the tallest buildings in San Francisco. I was with a bunch of people and didn’t want to appear foolish, so went – trying the entire time not to have a panic attack. Fortunately – it was foggy – so there wasn’t much to see. I think that’s all that saved me (and the fact that I purposely sat with my back to the window). But my fear of heights is only related to attachment to the ground. I don’t mind flying – in fact enjoy it. And – one day before I leave this earth I hope that I can take a hot air balloon ride!! High? Yes. But not attached to the ground!!
5. I once had dinner with Orville Redenbacher. It was at Benihana’s in San Diego – where you eat around a hibachi grill with several other people. Well, this day Dan and I went in, were led to a table with only two other people and low and behold one of them was Orville Redenbacher. He was like a caricature of himself – his grin, large black-rimmed glasses, shock of white hair, brown tweed suit and famous bowtie. He was there with his publicist – and was in the midst of a conversation about his recent trip on the Goodyear Blimp (now that I don’t want to do – height fear notwithstanding!). When we sat down he introduced himself, gave us a round sticker of his face which he autographed and then proceeded to spend most of the time there in conversation with us about popcorn!
6. I would love to play a musical instrument that would allow me to play with a group (in my dream – a symphony orchestra). I play the piano, but that is not a “group” instrument. Ideally it would be the cello (which I played in junior high school). I love the vibrations of a cello and its mellow tones. But it could also be the oboe. I would love to be part of great music – not a standout, just part of it!
7. I have my father’s hands (Nancy has mother’s hands). I recently compared my hands with my fathers’ – held them up, side by side – they were the same. I see character in my hands and I see wrinkles and aging skin. I see my hands a lot these days – on the computer keys, playing the piano, holding a book, patting Noel. I think I’ve noticed them most recently because when Noel holds them, or sucks on my fingers, there’s such a contrast between my hands and his. My hands are large, more tanned than his. Yet, I like my hands. There seems to be experience in my hands – evidence of days past and lessons learned.
8. I love competition – games and sports. I wish I had the talent and physical ability to figure skate. I’d love to play golf again. I love a good baseball game – being there, not so much watching on TV. I’m crazy about game night. Won’t ever turn down an opportunity to play Scrabble, Boggle, Bridge, Taboo, Settlers of Catan, Balderdash – or just about anything. OK – maybe I’m not so anxious to play Worms (I’ll never figure out those controls). I’m unfortunately addicted to computer games – I always know just one more game will be the BIG one! The BIG win! So – anytime, anyplace – deal the cards, set up the board – whatever. I’m there!

Tagged: I'm It

Shannon Stevens tagged me. Walked right into my inbox and said "You're it." Or something like that. Here are the rules:

Each tagged "player" states 8 random facts/habits about himself or herself and then writes a blog entry that reveals the 8 things and posts these rules. At the end of the blog, the tagged person must list 8 newly tagged people, leaving a comment that says "you're it" and asking them to read your blog.

So here goes. 8 random facts about me:

1. I'm a huge fan of The Cosby Show. Got highly disappointed when a sociologist visiting Centenary several years ago said the show didn't do any good to upset African-American stereotypes and might even have had an opposite effect. Hrmph. I love it anyway. Hardly missed a new episode growing up, hardly miss it in syndication now, am buying the DVDs as they come out. Go on, ask me any trivia.
2. Like Shannon, I love roller coasters. Even "the old, crickety wooden ones like the Texas Giant at Six Flags." One of my favorites: The Big Bad Wolf in Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Katy Valentine and I rode that hanging coaster too many times in a row just because we could (the park was so empty that day), and we tried it out in the front, in the middle, in the back. At dusk, we learned by experience not to ride in the front car of a roller coaster once the bugs come out.
   
3. I'm afraid of big things, like the really tall statue of Ramses II that finished the eponymous touring exhibit my family visited when I was a kid (subsequently, I have learned to go slowly and searchingly through museum doors lest some huge thing in the next room shock me). Too, the ocean: I love the sound but won't go past where my toes can touch, because other big things like whales and giant octopi live there. And also like St. Stephen's in Vienna; we got lost returning to our hotel from the opera late one night and suddenly, there it was, dark and looming. We had walked into the incense-filled nave a few days before, and I pivoted a careful, scared circle to map it in my mind: immense rose window behind, the tomb of Emperor Frederick III plus various relics and mystical things in side chapels, Habsburg intestines in the crypt below.
4. Whenever I hear Willie Nelson or Prairie Home Companion, I feel a little carsick. (My dad made us listen to his one tape of Willie every time we took a road trip. As for Prairie Home Companion, it was always on during my parents' seemingly endless countryside drives on Sunday afternoons: "Look, girls, isn't that dogwood beautiful? See it, in the middle of that forest? Right there. Beautiful." We learned to quit saying "no" because it just prolonged the pause; until a few years ago, neither my sister nor I even knew what a dogwood looked like. And we're working on Willie and PHC.)
5. Every time I move, I pack all my books in alphabetical order. Not alphabetical in each box but alphabetical per box, so that a box marked "Mc" only has books authored by writers whose last names begin with "Mc" and so on. Thankfully, we don't move often (random bonus fact: I dislike moving).
6. In high school, I rarely read required books. Well, I generally began them but almost never finished. But in 10th grade, I tested very well on the books: the now-doctor April would tell me what happened just before the quizzes.
7. I didn't have play clothes growing up.
   
8. I have a scar at my hairline where my sister threw a size D battery at me. We were fighting over a tape player and when the battery compartment opened from our jostling it, she just picked up the batteries and threw them, not meaning to actually inflict injury (she was maybe 7) but just get me out of the room, I think. My mom didn't punish her: she was so scared that she didn't need it! And my dad figured I didn't need stitches, so now I've got a wad of scar tissue to remember it by.
   

So there we have it. Now to tag a few more: Strange, Two Sheds, Sic, to-be Mrs. Menefee, Kathryn, Shelby.

Top Five

To honor the last day of National Poetry Month (and to try and keep up with the Muffins, the Two Sheds, and the Sics) I shall hereby post a Top Five:

1. Four Quartets by TS Eliot (well, and "The Rock" and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," but 4Q tops them all).
2. "Epithalamion Made at Lincoln's Inn" by John Donne (but oh the Holy Sonnets!)
3. "In Memoriam" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (but let's not forget "Ulysses" and "Crossing the Bar")

4. "Upon the Circumcision" by John Milton.
5. and "Birches" by Robert Frost, because earth really is a pretty good place for love.

I have much dismay realizing that those Five are all dead white men, but they are indeed my favorites, at least the top five poems that I go back to and read over and over. Of a whole host of other beautiful poems, though. Five is too hard.

Travel for Jacks and Goober

The organizers for C. S. Lewis: the Man and His Works, a 21st Century Legacy were "pleased to inform" me today that my proposal has been accepted to be read at the conference. To quote Myles, "yeeeeeehaw!"

Now I've just got to write the paper. . . . And plan for a busy fall, what with parading around North Carolina as a Lewisite and parading around Florida as an honorable matron while my sister becomes Mrs. Menefee. Should be eventful.

Lenten disciplines

It's Good Friday, which means it's the best day for the exercise of my favorite Lenten habit: reading TS Eliot's Four Quartets. Eliot wrote these four five-movement poems late in life, arguably adapting sonata form to written language, and I esteem them as some of the best poems ever. (Maybe one day I'll post a fives list of poems.)

Two of the quartets, "Burnt Norton" (Quartet No. 1, if you will, as Eliot placed it first in the collection) and "Little Gidding" (No. 4), are highly anthologized, but my favorite is "East Coker" (No. 2), not least because it ends with the line "In my end is my beginning," which one day maybe Micah will let me have as a tattoo.

But we're getting off the subject. Every year during Lent, I read the quartets because they explore the humility of this age and the glory of the renewed age to come. And every year, I find that I love the poems even more than the year before, especially my favorite section, that which celebrates Good Friday ("East Coker," fourth movement):

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

In these metered feet and careful rhymes, we see the beauty of the Messiah: he is the wounded surgeon, the bloody-handed healer, the ultimate keeper of the hospital which that ruined millionaire endowed with sin and death, our only food and drink. He makes us whole on this ironic Friday, such a day of death and terror, a remembrance of the most awful bad. Let the dying nurse tell us the story again so that we might again call it good.

198 words: quick, now

Earlier, I announced my knowledge of a certain CS Lewis conference. This evening, while watching the Gators trounce the Bruins (as predicted in my bracket and the warm cockles of my little heart), I emailed a paper proposal for that conference. Hopefully, they accept.

It was harder than I expected to do this. Lots of reasons why, but they're mostly compositional. That is, I have never composed an actual title for something unwritten, and I have certainly never composed a confident thesis before actually writing the body of its essay. But the CFP required both, so I struggled for them and have relative peace with what emerged. Here they are: first the proposed title, then a 198-word abstract for an unwritten but proposed paper. All comments welcome.

Will the Green Lady Become a Self? The Dangers of Self-Consciousness in CS Lewis' Perelandra

In the book of Genesis, no one asks "Who am I?" before the Fall, but all sons and daughters after ask this because the initial temptation struck directly at the question of identity: will humans define themselves as creatures in relationship with their Creator or as autonomous beings? In CS Lewis' Perelandra, the Un-man tempts the Green Lady with Eden's rhetoric, arguing that she can and should take upon herself the independent risk of disobedience: he tells stories about great women and teaches her about beauty, and then he makes those arguments practical by showing the Green Lady her other self in a mirror. As she begins to believe that experience trumps all theory, her interceder, Ransom, fears he may have finally lost her. After all, Ransom knows that this rhetorical triptych—the high call to maternal martyrdom, the definition of beauty as costume, and the assertion of an autonomous self—could steal the Green Lady's affections from Maleldil and the king to herself. Though many have argued that self-awareness distinguishes humans from all other creatures, the Perelandrian temptation demonstrates its dangers: such consciousness leads to independence, which leads to ego-centrism, which destroys relationships and compromises real beauty.

Birds and other books

Even if you don't like birds or books (oh, heavens, don't not like books!) please read Cindy Crosby's "Chuckleheads and Timberdoodles?" in the most recent Books and Culture. This review of The Birdwatcher's Companion to North American Birdlife is a treat, and most reviews aren't treats. So brew a cup of tea, grab your binoculars, and learn a few new vocabulary words from Crosby's lovely paragraphs.