I know I said I wanted to take a break from writing about teaching, but today was kind of a frustrating day and I couldn’t help myself. This is a poem called a cinquain, apparently, because the stanza or stanzas are all 5 lines long. The form also has to follow a specific syllabic countContinue reading “#5: Friday Irony”
Tag Archives: poetry
#4: The American Teenager Reads the Ancient Chinese Masters
The American Teenager Reads the Ancient Chinese Masters Untitled (Wang Wei, translated by David Hinton) You just came from my old village so you know all about village affairs. When you left, outside my window, was it in bloom—that winter plum? What the hell? What village affairs? Who left? Why did he leave? Where’d heContinue reading “#4: The American Teenager Reads the Ancient Chinese Masters”
#3: Self Censorship and the Creative Writer (You Can’t Say That)
I hate it. I wish it were not true, but whenever I have penned something delicious or exciting or in some way daring or brave, a series of questions begin nagging my monkey mind: What will my students think of that? How will my mother react? Will my brother disown me? Will my wife want me reading thisContinue reading “#3: Self Censorship and the Creative Writer (You Can’t Say That)”
#1: April Fools
What follows is the first poem of thirty I plan to write to celebrate National Poetry Month, a poem for every day in April. Let’s begin, appropriately enough, with a poem about the significance of April the first, a strange little holiday if there ever was one. The composition part went pretty smoothly, but here’sContinue reading “#1: April Fools”
michael jarmer 