Letting Loose

So today was just another day, until I watched a video sent to me in a mass email at school.

If you know me, I almost never watch those things, and make fun of them more than not, but I was a bit bored of editing papers and wanted to take a break. So I watched it.




The video, and my wife's wonderful blog (http://poemfish.typepad.com/poemfish/2008/04/the-right-time.html), really hit home with me, and made me realize that I wasn't being myself this year - that I was focusing on the wrong things as a teacher.

Sometimes I get too caught up in the little details. This year I've been so stressed out at the small stuff that I've actually yelled at students - and that's just not me. It's not who I am as a teacher, and not who I ever want to be, period.

So today I showed my newspaper class the video, and I teared up as I told them how hard it's been for me, and how I didn't want to be that guy. I asked them to remember to try to let go of the little things - the "he said/ she saids" that so often disrupt young lives. I asked them to look at their lives and ask themselves how they can choose, every day, to have a better one than the last. I told them that I would do the same. More than half of them rushed me with a "group hug."

My problem has been tunnel vision: "WE MUST GET THE YEARBOOK AND NEWSPAPER DONE!" has been my theme... and all the commas must be right... always write "said" and never says with quotes... everything must be written in AP Style... etc. I've forgotten that the yearbook and newspaper is, absolutely, not worth having a bad day over, and what's important is to help the students become better people.

So I convinced my editor-in-chief to let us all go out and play touch football. We did, and it was awesome. We laughed, we didn't keep score, and I moved faster than the students thought possible. Two students took pictures - a few decided to sun bathe rather than play - but we all had fun just goofing off. No deadlines - no drafts - just getting together as a class and bonding a bit.

I need to remember that I must be the example for my students - and that I should, and will, choose to have a great day, every day.

Chance Ridge

I've been waiting for this photo for around ten years. It's out near my in-law's house in Elkhorn, NE. I've driven by this spot hundreds of times, and each time when I see it, I think to myself "that would make a cool shot."

I tried a few times - but they all stunk. They were flat. They contained the phone lines just above. Or they just had poor composition.

Maybe this time, I finally got a good photo. I got closer. I put more depth-of-field in the photo. I "composed" the shot, and then I added some effects in Photoshop.

Poem Ten

This is a spot in a back alley in New Hope, PA, just off the main tourist-trap street. I walked right by the scene before it registered in my brain moments later. I stepped back and grabbed some shots with the my Pentax.

Poem Nine

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes

Poem Eight

you're keeping in step
in the line
got your chin held high and you feel just fine
because you do
what you're told
but inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold

just how deep do you believe?
will you bite the hand that feeds?
will you chew until it bleeds?
can you get up off your knees?
are you brave enough to see?
do you want to change it?

what if this whole crusade's
a charade
and behind it all there's a price to be paid
for the blood
on which we dine
justified in the name of the holy and the divine

just how deep do you believe?
will you bite the hand that feeds?
will you chew until it bleeds?
can you get up off your knees?
are you brave enough to see?
do you want to change it?

so naïve
to keep holding on to what I want to believe
i can see
but i keep holding on and on and on and on

will you bite the hand that feeds you?
will you stay down on your knees?

NIN - Trent Reznor

Poem Seven

Poem Six

A Clear Midnight
by Walt Whitman


This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

Poem Five

I wait.
I compose myself.
My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech.
What I must present is a made thing, not something born.

Margaret Atwood - from The Handmaid's Tale

Poem Four

THEIR NAMES


Their names linger on the tongue:
Fallujah, Ramallah, Samarra, Ryad --
Like water, whispers, illicit love.

But in the rubbled streets
Fear, hunger and flames
Embrace flesh, whole families

Burning homes to ground
Memories to ashes
All that was precious to the dead

But is of no value on this earth
To the living who ignite the fires
The ones who erase their names.

- Nancy Metcalf - http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org

Poem Three

On Deaf Ears - by One Minute Silence

Nobody listens any more to the lies
Is there a woman who keeps swallowing flies
Is there a Jesus waiting arms open wide
Too many stories, and too many.

Nobody listens any more to the trees
All moving too fast turning birds into bees
Some say the hurricane will soon be a breeze
I want to see it I want to believe

Wake up and smell the roses trust me and leap
The hand that rocks the cradle rocks you to sleep
It's not what you think it's not what you see
Is there a future or is it just me

Poem Two

The hills find peace
Locked armed guard posts
Safe from the screams
Of the children born as ghosts
Gates guns and alarms
Shape the calm of the dawn
Peering down into the basin
Where death lives on
When young run foaming at the mouth with hate
When burning batons beat the freezing who shake
Under the toxic sunsets they dine and toast
Of walls deny the terror faced
By the children born as ghosts

-Zach de la Rocha

Poem One

Democracy


Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.

I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.

Langston Hughes

REBOOT

To match my new commitment to posting more often, I've made some changes to memory. All archives are still there - but there will be only one post on the main page for daily updates. Photo size was also increased, and a new header published. I hope everyone likes the changes...

All of my photos this month will be themed as poetry - in spirit with my wife's post on National Poetry Month (http://poemfish.typepad.com/poemfish/2008/04/sidewalks-and-s.html).

Poetry Month

This is how I write poetry -

with light.