I finally finished the syllabus for the British Literature Survey course I start teaching next Tuesday; I'm posting one of my favorite pictures of Beckett, taken by one John Minihan as a small celebration gesture. John Minihan is the man when it comes to Beckett photography.
I still have my Poetry Workshop syllabus to figure out, but that one's not as intensive. It's equally as fun, but it's a bit different.
Both classes will be intense, but brilliant.
I'm hoping to get a great deal of writing and reading done this semester, and I'm hoping I can figure out how to balance everything with work (at least better than I have been doing). Teaching is work, but it's different. It's like my writing and research; it's what I'm supposed to be doing. It has purpose. It has value to me. Work does not. It's meaningless; and I guess it's more meaningless because I don't place a great deal of value on it. Yet, I don't want to. I don't want to subtract from the worth I give my "real" work (my writing). Teaching lends to my writing; teaching results from my writing. This isn't to say my writing is didactic. I find no value in that. It's just to say, teaching flourishes for me because of my habit of writing and reading and research. It's a byproduct. But not some unpleasant toxic kind that you form a government policy over to have the seeping barrels of toxic goo sent to a large desert way out in the BF region of the world to store so it might leak into the ground water and cause three eyed fish, and large men with donut eating habits to watch over the sludge while their skinny old boss has his lacky Smithers....anyway.....that being said...Good Night.
![["Post-It Anger"]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRADu1uaTXgNmpCIsJxk6t5KFHXDbsAEr-nwWUPu-3dJe_foFigF_IjJJ7tDEoy4BzJu-Lnl2b6n8GTcmyGYeserkoL6zYi9ZV3PilfiLIbjjAC9T5LIYNrs4VDGJCWybcFFbxmfaYq1Q/s220/post-it_anger_dark-roasted-blend.jpg)
2 comments:
Ha,ha. I love reading what you have to say.... I did have to look up didactics, which way did you intend it?
1.inclined to teach or lecture others too much
2.teaching or intending to teach a moral lesson
3.the art or science of teaching.
I'm just curious...always.
... I wanted to thank you sincerely for the book "Gift from the Sea". It's freaky because I was going to go out and buy 2 of them. One for me and one for Sherri. Thats how much I loved it. I have a feeling I will read this book off and on for the rest of my life....again, thanks!
By didactic, I did mean poetry that has a primary objective in trying to 'teach' the reader something. I find this type of poetry irritating. It's usually people who feel the overt need to tell others inferior to them how to 'live' their lives. Usually these people believe their understanding of the world to be the only way. It drives me bananas.
I think poetry can help people understand things; but I think the poetry that really grabs someone deep down isn't a poem made primarily to instruct. It's a poem that comes from some place hollow, and hard, and soft, and raw, and honest. Poems made to teach are so surface and shiny: like a toilet seat with plastic wrap over the top.
I'm thankful you enjoyed "Gift from the Sea." It was so soul satisfying when I read it. Not just because of the beauty and peace within the work, but also because I am so in awe of how a woman, having gone through what she had, could have found such a place of strength and peace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Morrow_Lindbergh
I have been waiting a long time to find someone who would need/enjoy that book as much as I did, and relish it as much as I do.
It's one of those books we have to hold close to us, and keep over us; to look to and remind us about our own strengths; to remind us to find peace in daily life; to encourage us to write what we must.
My dear M calls these books 'Guardian Angels'.
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