michaeljarmer

To Be a Life-Long Listener

In education we often bandy about one of our most sincere hopes for our students and aspirations for ourselves, to be life-long learners. I’m a huge fan of this concept. I never want to be complacent about my learning, about expanding the horizons of my brainiac: I want to read new things, write new things,Continue reading “To Be a Life-Long Listener”

Thank You, Neil

Somewhat unusually, I think, because it wasn’t a huge hit, the first album I heard from Rush was the debut, the only Rush record without a Neil Peart on the drums. My brother had it, and during those days, as young as I was, my brothers’ and my sister’s records just seemed to BE there.Continue reading “Thank You, Neil”

New Year Tradition? A New Way to Experience Music? 2020!

Section 1: A New Year Tradition? I hope this does not become a New Year’s Tradition, but two years in a row now, I have been ill going into New Year’s Eve and absolutely down for the count on the first day of the new year. Coupled with that has been a tradition that IContinue reading “New Year Tradition? A New Way to Experience Music? 2020!”

Stop the Block by Writing About the Block: A Resolution

As the song says, it’s been a long time since I rock and rolled. Actually, I’ve been doing a lot of literal rocking and rolling on the drums. I’m speaking figuratively about the kind of rock and roll that typically manifests itself in poetry, fiction, and right here on the blog site. Inexplicably (or not),Continue reading “Stop the Block by Writing About the Block: A Resolution”

Car Crash Haiku

As we were about to read Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” for the poem of the day, I was introducing my students to a poetic formal structure I was pretty sure none of them had ever heard of, the villanelle. To begin with, I explained to them that a formal structure was one in which theContinue reading “Car Crash Haiku”

#344: Who Let The Dogs Out?

They let themselves out, thank you very much. On a warm, August night, 11 pm, something outside catches their attention, and the larger of my two dogs simply stands up on her hind legs and, using the handle, opens the latched screen door. And they run. Together. Free to run and roam. They cross the busy streetContinue reading “#344: Who Let The Dogs Out?”

Life Envy: The FOMO

I want to be living that life. By myself, late at night, sitting in the dark of the back yard with my phone, the dog, and a drink, I actually heard myself say this out loud: I want to be living that life. It’s crazy, I know, but looking sometimes at pictures of peopleContinue reading “Life Envy: The FOMO”

The American English Teacher Rereads a Clean Copy of Beloved

I’ve posted a slightly different version of this piece before, two years ago and some change. It seems appropriate to post this revision now in honor of Toni Morrison, whose fiction has over the course of my adult life completely changed my heart and my brain in immeasurably powerful and positive ways. The American EnglishContinue reading “The American English Teacher Rereads a Clean Copy of Beloved”

Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: All Good Things. . .

Our time together had come to a close and I was alone in the dorm where we stayed at Macalester College for the annual Warren Wilson MFA Alumni Conference. It was strange, that quiet, after all that activity, after all that brilliant conversation, after the nightly readings and daily classes, the meals together three timesContinue reading “Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: All Good Things. . .”

Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: Countdown T-Minus a Day and Some Change

I’ve got plane tickets, I’ve got plane snacks, I’ve got a new Moleskine notebook, I’ve got the new album by GLASYS, I’ve printed and practiced my reading, I’ve chosen some poems for morning meditation, I’ve packed my copies of Monster Talk, I got a tooth crowned, I got my hair cut, I got a copyContinue reading “Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: Countdown T-Minus a Day and Some Change”