Author: Monda

One Street Typewriter-Poet and My Retirement Plan

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I’m in grading-mode right now and have banned myself from All Things Distracting. I saved this little ditty a few weeks ago for just such a moment. I’m thinking about retirement and moving to Eureka Springs forever so I can be a typewriter poet in front of the cafes. If gas gets any more expensive, I may have to find a folding table and get to work sooner. Enjoy the video.

M.I.A., or Who is that Woman with the Ink Stains on her Blouse?

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It’s 5:30 in the morning and I’ve already been up and grading since 3:00. I’ve been doing this for days, and I’ll probably be doing it tomorrow. Don’t feel sorry for me – I like the smell of ink in the morning, it smells like victory. Besides, in the dark early hours there is silence and good coffee.
I’ve completely blown off the blog for over a week now. The four or five of you who actually read this may not even care, but I do. I miss the writing. The laptop is shoved toward the back of the desk and turned off, for the most part, to keep me out of time-eating trouble. The typewriter is back in its case because it was the most anguishing and visible sign that I Have Other Work To Do. All distractions gone, and the papers get full attention.
And there are a great many papers.
I don’t hate grading. Once I get my reading groove on it’s absolutely fascinating to read all the hard work, the insights, the epiphanies. Sometimes the papers are badly written, but for the most part students actually care about the topics they’ve chosen and the arguments are fairly sound. I love this part of teaching even though it’s the loneliest dark-of-the-morning part of it all.
Finals are next week and I’ll be at this again. If I get lucky, there will be time this weekend to tell you about the amazing literary magazine my undergraduate students just published and the awards they’ve earned. Stunning work.
There. I’ve given you the only fifteen minutes I’ll have for a bit. Back to the essays.

Weekly No Tellin’ Scribble Challenge, and last week’s winner

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April isn’t really the cruelest month, it’s actually National Poetry Month. We should celebrate. Between the tornado sirens and the Arkansas River floodwaters, there needs to be some moment of peaceful, poetic delight. Otherwise, we would all sound just like ‘ol T. S. – and have you ever really heard him? Well, I don’t know many voices that can conjure up such large-scale depression. On with the delight, then.

The first exciting bit of news is that we have a winner in last week’s Scribble Challenge. Aedh’s poem “Tulips” wins hands down by following Cruelanimal’s lead a few weeks ago and scaring off the competition. Congratulations, Aedh! Be sure to copy/paste the coveted No Tellin’ Winner’s Blog Badge to your own blog. You’ve earned it.

This week’s Scribble Challenge needs to be something celebratory and April-y. And I’m convinced it should be poetry in some form or other, in Honor of National Poetry Month. Write about dancing. It can be anything from your first junior high dance to Britany Spears doing The Stumble. You can write about your high school prom or your first trip to a strip club. Hopefully they didn’t occur on the same night, but if they did, write about that too. Write about the ballet or the mosh pit, I don’t care. Surprise all of us. To get you rolling, I’ve included a couple of inspiring dance videos. Now, go make poems.

Bill and Hillary: Family Album

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In the middle of all the verbal fisticuffs and political mayhem, I keep returning to this picture. I found it some time ago and planned to use it for something snarky, but I just can’t. Look at them. A million years ago before the campaigns and the bad press and the blue dress and the winning. Back before they ate from the tree.

And it strikes me that all this history they carry on each other’s backs, all this accumulated striving and aching for more and less, all of it is in the seed of this picture. In this moment they have no Secret Service detail, no publicized broken hearts or policies. They aren’t yet parents or Presidents.

Everything we know of them is after this photograph. He never inhaled and she never exhales. There’s always a race they’re both running. I honestly can’t see either of them on CNN now without thinking of the innocence in this picture.