this seems to have become the way I now listen. the notetaking. then the sonnet. and so they continue. although it is may.

 

“Let me recite what history teaches” (Stein)

i’ve never done this before, come up

with a job description like a good

stubborn plagiarist, approachable

depleted but it’s only spring

so break the mattress the waitress

at last be generous with your form

arms extended always giving

like the rendering of Jesus on the walk

to center city just one experience

of tempo of self-proclaimed pastoral

but i do not hear a language

need all those signs to need me

 

first turn paragraph to portraiture

embrace the nod & greet basis

“What is it that recurs?” (Perl)

 

“the politics of literacy = the politics of working conditions” (Berman)

for Richard E. Miller

 

dare i say spreadsheet, dare

i say engine economy retail

court this hard headed approach

to empathy because remember

it’s a read/write world, a scale

tilting no longer grounded

in printing press, no longer low cost

authority functionally fluffed

a single phrase multiply produced

but i really want to underscore,

to vet interest in the blood run

economy as much fun as the whole

 

of childhood or the glee club

approach to sequence and trial

 

Session L. 31: High School to College: Student Learning, the Common Core Standards for College Readiness, and the Politics of Literacy

Anne Gere (Chair), Russell Berman, Doug Hesse, Richard E. Miller

“literacy…a plot against speaking?” (Elbow)

the last time we sat in a room and pretended

to meet i got a coffee cup out of it

and the word missing redefined as state

adjusted autonomy, with all the pretenses

of greeting complexity as standard fugitive

practice through which relationships

materialize and we drive the car forward

and be “creative” because we can’t add

anything else and not all conspiracies

are conscious uncontestable so let’s join

hands and fight the lost war, chant—

money money importance money compose

 

money and when a bacterial cell dies it leaves

behind packets of dna, i say they’re like diaries

 

Session FSp.8: What are the Linguistic and Rhetorical Virtues in Casual Spontaneous Speech that can Strengthen Careful Writing—Even Academic Writing?

Peter Elbow

Because it is national poetry month (whatever that means), and because I am just back (and feeling very recharged) from the 4Cs (Conference on College Composition and Communication), I decided to create some kind of “academic” “blog” “space.”

Because it is national poetry month (whatever that means), and because my research straddles poetry, poetics, and composition/pedagogy, I decided to compose one sonnet for every session I attended at the C’s.

My procedure/restraints were:

1. Use a quote from the presentation as the poem’s title
2. Dedicate the poem to one of the panelists
3. Limit the poem’s language to words heard either during the session or prior to the session (en route to the session)
4. The last two lines of the sonnet should construct some kind of turn or reflection that indicates what I loved about the panel or a specific paper/part of the panel

 

Here goes…

 

“in the hideous dropping off of the veil” (Poe)

for Dominique Zino

what does it mean to want nothing more

than tall spires, to experience my sentence

and feel safe in that sort of writhing.

clear, candid, sluggish—this intonation

of glorious astroturf, fractal flesh-

bots with the style and structure

of credo building, a “this i believe”

moment at the foot of a mountain

where consensus constructing is no longer

familiar and bull versus cow commentary

becomes parrot versus frog no longer

“only a metaphor” but a metaphor

in progress, a constellation in utero

ideal because the tangent is learning

 

Session G.19: Making Metaphor, Discovering Relations

Katherine Sohn (chair), Ruth Josimovich, Georgia Reid, Dominique Zino