Rainy Day Saturday Led to Position Time in the Grading Chair (& Even an Unexpected Nap). Enjoyed the Morning Hike, Though

I don't think I've ever know what it is to have a weekend. Teachers spend the weekend catching up and getting ahead, finding every crevice they can to stay on top of their jobs. It's not like you punch out Friday and check back on Monday. Instead, it's chisel away at all the moments you can while feeling overwhelmed that you should also be able to take a break.

I'm getting there, though. Soon classes will end and weekends can be without the constant pile-up of student work. 

The temperature remain cool which may be the reason a nap was in order. They're rare for me, but I know one when it wants to sneak into my home. Most often I resist, but yesterday I gave in, only because I knew I wasn't heading out in the rain at night. I could use that time to grade. 

Only a few more days of #VerseLove (and I'm hearing the THANK GOD from Central New York). Yesterday was a bit of a voluminous task - to write a spoken word piece to be performed on stage. I tapped into ol' Writing Our Lives workshops to edit material. I didn't have it in me to produce something new. I need slower, more low-key performance in April, as the rest of the year is on stage. 

It's still drizzling as I write this, so I don't know what else is in store for the day other than another cup of coffee and to remember to post today's poem. So here I go. 

from Writing Our Lives - #BeFree 

We are not the inhibition.

We are more the exhibition

This sun that brings us power to everything we face.

our contribution, our revolution, to improve the human race 

growing stronger in this nest, while starting to spread these wings, 

working arm and arm together in order to changes some things 

with liberation, concentration, and our own initiation - 

#ToBeFree, a celebration

where this poem may also sing.

We are the fresh air, the mad-hatters, 

the ice-cream, a cantaloupe, 

the intergalactic youth chatter striving 

to live & to cope in this mad  kaleidoscope 

of honey, Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, 

and Earl Gray tea. 

Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do.

our linguistic symphony,

undoing these idiotic shackles  - 

ready to step to the Mic,

tiptoeing with imagination through roses, 

& showing ‘em what our lives ‘be’ like,

stopping to smell the two lips

that bring voice to this wireless baton,

releasing negativity from proverbial caves, 

and so on 

and so on 

and so on.

Teaching one another that language is our power,

bringing souls what it craves without becoming sour,

& lighting an oral fuse with magical wands - WE empower,

transmission, 

amplification, 

exhibition, 

a declaration

that our truth is written for the ignorant to read.… 

Today, we release lyrical birds with what we think & what we bleed,

into this cacophony and harmony, telling ourself to #BeFree, 

You, Me, this dedication

Writing Our Lives, it is the WE.

I Am Simply Happy to Slide Into Another Saturday, Away from the Monday-Friday Silliness of Employment. I Need Rest.

Fortunate for me, I've not been able to make faculty meetings for faculty retreats in my school because of grant work in schools and other service responsibilities across campus .I was able to attend, however, yesterday. 15 years of such work and I'm still wondering why. Of course, this was at a yacht club right outside one of the most impoverished school districts in the nation. It can be so tone-death at times (and I'm super tone-death). 

I lasted until around lunch time, but then I was thinking about a delivery I was expecting on campus and I wanted to see a staff member on campus who is retiring, but didn't want anyone to know. I would rather spend time with those that work than those who pretend they work. She is leaving and I will miss her. 

I also spent a gift card I bought a couple of summer's ago after Justin and Juliet's baby shower. I used the card to order dinner for Pan, Leo, Bev, and I and got there early to pick it up. I came home to walk Karal, too. I am thankful they are calling for rain today. I will sit still with no plans and finally catch up on weeks worth of work with no distractions. 

I look forward to it. 

Lost Cause(s) 

b.r.crandall

I meant to lose 30 pounds 

while writing this poem, b

ut chunks of my mind 

disappeared instead.

There’s the glasses I lost 

only to find not one, but two pairs a

top my head after asking 100s 

if they’d seen my specks.

Thought they might be 

with my car keys 

that disappeared in 2006 

only to learn days later that 

they were hidden by a student 

outside a classroom window

as a little joke. 

I had to walk to

work until he

remembered his

playfulness. Schmuck.

The kid is

almost 40

now.

As for hope, Pandora,

you’ve trapped

me.

I

know you store this

evil in a box.

And for those

thieves who’ve

stolen time.

yo. I’d like it back.

But for the girls I met in

junior high & college. 

Thanks for

the cigars. 

I tried.

Yesterday Was National Bryan Day. Alas, I Spent It Grading and Working on Grant Budgets. I Really Did Try, Though.

I have no idea who comes with weird national days, but it truly was National Bryan Day yesterday. I've marked an alert on my calendar for the rest of my life (or, at least as long as I-Calendar and I-phones exist). Denise Krebs prompt on #VerseLove was to take a poet (I used Ruth Stone) and take the first words of each line in one of their poems to see where it will take you. I love playing, and knowing it was National Bryan Day it was a no-brainer to celebrate me...although it never happened. I did walk, at 7 a.m., an did eat at the University student center (a salad), but otherwise it was a day of labor.

Oh, Pam forgot her glasses, so I had to drop of a pair of mine to get her through the day. There was that, too. Then the number crunching, followed by the grading, which is not going like I hoped it would. I get through a few and then I want to go outside and get my hands in the dirt, which I'm trying to hold off until Spring. 

The prompt asked to steal from another, so I took the first words from Ruth Stone's poem, Shapes. I went egotistical and celebrated myself without any real celebrations...a cause for celebration, indeed.

And today is Friday. God bless...I'm going to a faculty retreat. Pray for me that I won't gouge my eyes out and leap from a balcony. I'm hoping to endure. 

It’s the Thought That Counts

b.r.crandall

In other news, it's National Bryan Day;

however, I don’t expect much. Just dinner,

so you might want to think about where 

you will take me. I don’t like olives or celery, but

of course I love bourbon in all forms. Will you stop 

by to pick me up? I’m already showered,

as I anticipated someone would want to 

head over for this day of ME.. You just need to

step up, grab your wallet, & drive to 332 Mt. Pleasant..

LIKE NOW.. Stop reading this poem & get your keys

or you won’t make it to Stratford upon-the-sound

by a decent hour. George Washington is

a motorized monster at this time & I-95 will likely be

in red from Greenwich to Bridgeport until 7 p.m.

Even if you leave now…oh forget it. Just forget it. Look

at the time. I’ll celebrate myself without you.

All Those Years of Having 9th Grade Parents Spell Onomatopoeia for Extra Credit Paid Off with Yesterday's #VerseLove26 Poetic Prompt

I know my mom hates April when the blog is poetry and not more narration, but I think this one  she'll like as it is a classic from our childhood (and her childhood). She has even more of her mother's wit (my grandmother). The prompt was to take an animal and write a poem using onomatopoeia. Well, this was a no-brainer as I grew up hearing the ways my grandmother would describe the frogs singing at the lake. Her stories were central to a joyful childhood, and in craft the frame around her singing frogs, I remembered the big hats (and now I can smell the room and see her face-painted styrofoam wig heads, too). And I'm sneezing because of, well, dust, and Mr. Nu. 

I also started to think about Grannie Annie in her chair, feet up, in the same way my mom does it today. I just wish my mom had the lake to look out to from her recliner. 

Yesterday was a long day on campus and today I am thinking I need to pin myself in my own chair for grading. There's a million things piling up and I want to get the overwhelmed feeling to a medium whelmed. Also celebrate Dr. Betsy Bowen's Father Von Arc award for community engagement. Such an honor to applaud a shining star on campus, especially as she retires. 

Meanwhile, the frogs.   

When We Were Pollywogs 

b.r. crandall 

raised 

on a lake 

with horny

frogs

I’m in the mood

I’m in the mood

I’m in the mood

lying

under her 

giant brimmed

hats with 

purple & pink

laces.

Not tonight!

Not tonight!

Not tonight!

listening.

wondering.

hearing

don’t

don’t

dan’t

the night’s

naughtiness

within a 

red cabin.

Bosoms! 

Bosoms!

Bosoms!

 

croaking up

with the

poetic way

she knew

her world.

Shut up, Kids. 

Shut up, Kids.

Shut up, Kids

until we did…

…falling asleep

into our dreams.

Review a Book in Haiku Form (#VerseLove26). Well, I've Been Reading Kendi...Almost Done. Phew...How Is It Only Mittwoch

Finished another graduate class last night (only two more to go) and became enthralled with looking at photos a professional photographer took at last week's Whitman events with Dr. Karen Karbiener. The allergy season has wiped out many a student, but we're still pushing onward. It looks warm, but it remains cold.

Yesterday's prompt was to reflect poetically in haiku form over a book we're reading and I'm almost done with Chain of Ideas by Ibram X. Kendi. He continues to be one of the sharpest, most efficient scholars of our times, citing research like no other as he makes a case for international phenomenon (of where we are right now). The age of authoritarianism has been woven into the fabric of democracies from their beginning, and the reckoning is political ping pong which, well, is a stance of being pro-humanity, or being pro-the-power-of-a few. For me, it's about having the freedom to educate all youth about history and the stories that get told, but also are sidelined to benefit the narrator. 

Kendi brings receipts. That is the scholarly brain. Online authorities bring opinions to protect the stories they've told themselves. They bring ignorance, privilege, half-baked ideologies, and conspiracies. Fascinating, actually. I'll be dead long before this age resolves itself for what it really tells about the human experiment. For now, I'm intrigued.  

While Reading Kendi 

b.r.crandall

ten links for our time

chaining ideas together

in a racist world:

flip the shit around

anti-anti-racism

make it about them

tell false histories

linked by self-preservation…

…ideologies…

rich men in board rooms

orchestrating bogus news,

claiming they’re oppressed. 

international

reversal of narratives -

core to bigger plans.

human animals

trapped by vast oligarchies,

a powerful design.

modern KKK

with great replacement theory

(swastika tea parties)

maskless truck convoys,

vaccine discriminations

speeding their white lies

ideas pulverized,

insurrections go free.

such democracy.

is it biology?

these authoritarians

claiming such power

a need to resist

these sheep-wolf dictatorships

reclaiming freedom

finding integrity…

our humanity, linked with

togetherness - the we.