chasing the long white cloud

"Cherry Tomatoes": An Exercise in Translation

2014-07-17T18:54:00.000-06:00

5 Irish Cherry Tomatoes from IvanWalsh.com on flickr.

Today Wilderness Interface Zone features a poem called "Cherry Tomatoes" by April Salzano. The poem struck me not because I think it fully succeeds as poetry: its language, like the speaker's tomato plant, hangs too loosely on its (attempted) scaffolding. As such, its rhythms, for me, fall flat; it feels like prose masquerading as poetry by breaking itself into lines—and free verse is much more than that. Additionally, I think it contains a bit too much verbal dead-space and it could do without the last line/word: by explaining the image that precedes it—an over-laden plant consuming water and expending energy to produce unused fruit—this word, "Wasted," weakens the poem's potential impact and, frankly, patronizes readers who surely don't need to be told that the plant and its dropped and uneaten fruit are a waste. In my mind, it's more compelling and potentially transformative to leave readers with an image of waste than to explain to them that what they've been shown was supposed to be an image of waste.

Having said that: while the poem doesn't, for me, succeed as poetry, it did recall an early poem I wrote that features cherry tomatoes. Because it struck a personal chord, I decided to translate it into my own language. That effort spawned the following poem, which borrows and remixes Salzano's image. I say "borrow" because I hope my language gives something back to hers, just as this exercise in translating her language into mine has re-emphasized for me my own approach to writing and revising poems, which tends toward focus and compression: cutting any lulls in rhythm or dead-space in imagery as created by unnecessary words. I've observed elsewhere that "focus and compression, as an editor once suggested to me, are keys to creating successful poems. Turn the innovative phrase, I add, but turn it succinctly; make it tight. Compress experience into the poetic vessel so when you light the fuse and release it on the world, it will explode in the reader's face, it will reverberate through the bones."

Anyway, here's my version of "Cherry Tomatoes," which I don't intend to publish anywhere but here. Let me know your impressions in the comments:

Cherry Tomatoes

cluster on thin vines vining their cage
in a garden lining the driveway, soil—
hose-wet and summer-worn—feeding
blossoms become cysts ripened and
split wide.
She plucks as she passes,
folding fruit into a shirt-basket, though
she knows no one will eat
just as she knows what's left will fall,
will farewell the vine and pulp the stones
below.

Our Eternal Father and Mother: Prototypes for Living Better in the World

2014-06-19T15:53:00.001-06:00

A Mother's Love by Lynde Mott,
First Place, A Mother Here Art and Poetry Contest

The last Sunday of March this year, I delivered a sacrament meeting sermon to our Pocatello congregation (the last one I would give there before we moved back to Utah). When I was asked to speak, I was told that I would have ten minutes or so to speak and was asked to address this topic: "In the world, but not of the world." Because the topic is pretty general (and frankly a bit cliched), I wanted to take a different approach to it than those I've heard before. And because I was speaking as part of my ward's Young Men Presidency, I wanted to say something in relation to the power and authority available to those who honor their covenants. As I prepared, my thoughts kept gravitating toward the expanding discourse on women and the priesthood and I felt compelled to address the presence of Heavenly Mother in Mormon theology. I couldn't, of course, address much in my ten minutes at the rostrum, so my sermon touches upon her presence only briefly and is intended as an overview to open the way to further discussions about the implications of the Gods' presence in our lives.

After I finished speaking, my wife observed that everything I had said was common sense; I'm not sure if that's because we've discussed these things at home before or something else. Even so, I know nothing I said was groundbreaking, but I hope my effort to break the supposed silence surrounding Heavenly Mother had some influence on those who heard my words that day. I share my sermon here to add it to the expanding discourse I mentioned above.

I welcome your response in the comments.

Fishing the Snake with the Father and His Sons

2013-12-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

From dennisbehm on Flickr

Last October my poem "Upon Hearing Elder B—— Bear Witness that 'Satan is Real' to a Mormon Congregation the Second Sunday of 2011" was published in Dayna Patterson's classy online poetry rag Psaltery & Lyre. It also appears in Field Notes on Language and Kinship. (I chatted with Dayna about Psaltery & Lyre here.) I've been meaning to post a reading of the poem since it was published and I've sat down a few times to record it, but it's long, breath-unit lines have stymied me such that, after many attempts, I got frustrated and walked away, intent on trying another day. With the Mormon Poetry Slam in full swing at FireinthePasture.org (come join the sound parade!), I thought this was as good a time as any to record and share the poem. So: after many, many more attempts and almost walking away again, I finally have a recording that I'm content enough with to share. (Read: I'll never get it perfect.)

Here it is. Happy listening.

On chasing the long white cloud

2013-11-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

Chasing the Long White Cloud
by Susan Krueger-Barber

When I started this blog five years ago, I outlined my motivations by asking myself a question: "Why chase the long white cloud?" A lot of things in my life have changed since I took those first steps into social media-dom, but the metaphor that motivated me to move forward with the endeavor has stuck with me---so much so, in fact, that I incorporated it into Field Notes on Language and Kinship. It appears in the book as the heading to Part 2, beside the stunning Susan Kreuger-Barber image displayed in this post and with this prefatory note:

From December 1998 to December 2000, I served as an LDS missionary in New Zealand. While I was there, I visited cities and towns between Taupo in the middle of the North Island and Kaitaia in the Northland and met people from many countries and cultural backgrounds. As happens with many missionaries and other travelers, I was transformed in the process.

Of all the cultures I encountered in New Zealand, Maori (MAH-ohree; the Maori r is rolled) culture has most influenced me. I've held it in mind since I returned home and many of its ideas have become part of my worldview and my writing, my poetry especially. Some years ago, for example, I began using an image from Maori mythology to give shape to a growing fascination with people and their interactions, societies, cultures, kinships, and texts. The image: someone chasing a long white cloud. It comes from the Maori name for New Zealand, Aotearoa (AH-oh-TAY-uh-ROW-uh), which means “the land of the long white cloud.” Legend has it that when Kupe (COO-pay), Maori voyager and New Zealand’s fabled founder, approached the islands later named New Zealand, he knew land lay ahead because a long bank of cumulus hovered in the distance.

Just as chasing that cloudbank brought Kupe a land for his people, that people and their land opened my eyes to the diverse possibilities of the human sea. I’ve been searching for those possibilities ever since. Every time I think I’ve come close to approaching some solid ground of human understanding, though, the cloudbank dissipates, then reappears over a different, distant island, compelling me to explore onward. Chasing the long white cloud, then, has become my metaphor for this persistent attempt to understand—or at least to try to understand—cultures, peoples, and paradoxes beyond my personal horizon. The entries in this section represent ways I’ve pursued that understanding via an engagement with my experiences in New Zealand.

And my entries on this blog and this blog and this blog represent the ways I'm still pursuing that understanding, still chasing the long white cloud.

Here's to revisiting and revising and reveling in the chase.

Some Notes on Copyright Law and Academic Publishing

2013-10-25T15:21:00.000-06:00

Copyright laws and academic presses (who should be advocating for academic freedom) working together to mute scholars' voices. Tsk tsk tsk.

In his tweet about this Slate article, “Executors or Executioners?” (tagline: “Why can’t my biography of Shel Silverstein quote the works of Shel Silverstein? His censorious estate.”), Eric Jepson suggests, and rightly so, that copyright law needs to change. I read this in part as a statement of desire that power needs to be returned to these voices. But beyond the changes that need to be made to copyright laws, the process of academic publishing needs to change, too, as does our perception of knowledge-building via "thoughtful, good-faith argumentation and conscientious debate." Maybe that can, in part, happen if we begin constructing new metaphors to replace the one stated at the end of the article:

What we have here [in this biographer’s interactions with Silverstein’s estate]—if you’ll forgive the military metaphor—is but one front in a larger war against the rigorous analysis of fact. It’s part of a war against the presentation of evidence, a war against thoughtful, good-faith argumentation and conscientious debate. It’s another front in the larger war against truth. Which side are you on?

It seems to me that it would be useful to move beyond this violent, war-mongering imagery in which one party seeks to assert power over the other and to think about the motivations that may bring each party together in the first place and that may drive their behavior and the stances they take toward one another. On the one hand, copyright holders are likely afraid that others (scholars, for instance) will steal their intellectual property and in the process rob the estate of any potential gains said property might offer---like money, fame, respect, etc. On the other hand, those (like scholars) who want to use the material may fear being silenced, which can result in less-than-rigorous scholarship, something that further limits the scholars' ability to contribute to their knowledge-community and to be acknowledged for that contribution (in the form of academic advancement, for instance).

So the motivating factor in this contest over who should get to use someone’s “intellectual property” seems to be fear: fear that, if given the chance, the Other will make off with what’s rightly ours. (Fear, in fact, seems to be one of the motivating factors for all acts of violence and war.) But how do we move past that fear to begin establishing a more generous, more trusting, more trustworthy system for sharing and building knowledge, one in which the needs and desires of all parties are represented and advocated for? What metaphor---other than the military one asserted in the article---might be a more productive way to think about and to begin re-constructing the relationship between intellectual property holders and those who seek to use, to elaborate on, and/or to adapt that property?

As I ask the questions, the image of a creative commons comes to mind. But I’ll have to do more thinking on that metaphor and to share my thoughts on copyright and traditional academic publishing in another post, on another day. For now: any thoughts?

Celebrating Fire in the Pasture, Slam Style

2013-10-15T18:23:00.000-06:00

Click the image for more info.

In which I geek out a little about after receiving my limited edition copy of Field Notes on Language and Kinship

2013-10-07T18:20:00.001-06:00

Enjoy the video.

Nuff said.

Triple-threat Volcano

2013-10-03T12:31:00.001-06:00

I'm one proud papa. Daughter #1 (a fifth-grader) came home last week with an assignment: to make a volcano. She and her friend/classmate came up with the idea ("We want it all!") and my wife and I helped them figure out how to make it work. Their class set the projects off this morning. It was, to quote the kids, "AWESOME!" Check it out for yourself.

A Reader's Eye View of Field Notes on Language and Kinship

2013-10-02T10:35:00.000-06:00

Yesterday morning, the day after a box full of Field Notes paperbacks arrived on my doorstep, I pulled out my phone and shot a "tour" of the book from my perspective. For some reason the audio cut out at the very end, but I think you'll get the gist. I'll make another tour when my limited edition arrives, so you have that to look forward to; I know I'm excited to hold it in my hands.

There's more about the video and some links and stuff on the video's YouTube page.

Happy watching.

Field Notes on Language and Kinship Released

2013-09-24T17:06:00.000-06:00

My book officially released today. Glen Nelson announced its publication this morning via his Mormon Artists Group e-newsletter, Glimpses. Here's what he said:

Mormon Artists Group is pleased to announce the publication of
Field Notes on Language and Kinship

by Tyler Chadwick
artworks by Susan Krueger-Barber

A landmark publication appeared in 2011, an anthology of contemporary Mormon poetry. It was an ambitious undertaking that, it can be argued, is among the most important books on Mormonism to appear in the first years of the century. Unknown to many, even inside the Church, Mormon poets have recently become regular contributors to the leading poetry publications in the country. Their poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry, The Iowa Review, The New Republic, Slate, The Southern Review, among many, many others. The award-winning anthology, Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-first Century Mormon Poets, presented 82 poets' new works in its 522 pages.

The editor for Fire in the Pasture was Tyler Chadwick, a young scholar and poet from Idaho. After the publication of the anthology, Mormon Artists Group approached Chadwick to write a book to answer a simple question: Why does poetry matter to you? He responded with Field Notes on Language and Kinship. It is Mormon Artists Group's 24th project.

The book is a direct response to the works in Fire in the Pasture. Chadwick reacts to them in several ways, as a scholar, memoirist, essayist, and poet. Field Notes on Language and Kinship is published as a two-volume edition. The anthology, Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-first Century Mormon Poets, is rebound in hardcover; and Chadwick's original volume is bound as a companion work, covered with hand-pounded amate barkskin papers from Mexico's Otomi Indians and brown Japanese Asahi silk. The two are presented in a slipcase. A commercial paperback is also available from Amazon.com.

One of Chadwick's sources of inspiration is visual art, and Field Notes on Language and Kinship includes eight artworks created especially for this project by Susan Krueger-Barber. Just as Chadwick's text brings multiple disciplines of literature to bear, Krueger-Barber's works are multi-disciplinary, mixed media works. Each of them combines photography, painting, and collage (using fragments torn from a copy of Fire in the Pasture). The publication is limited to 25 copies, signed by the artists and numbered.

To read excerpts from Field Notes on Language and Kinship, to explore the original artworks, and to acquire the book and/or the artworks, visit our website.

Here's a pic of the paperback cover:

Cover images by Susan Krueger-Barber.
Cover design by Glen Nelson.

And here's a pic of the limited editions:

Limited edition objects designed and bound by Glen Nelson.

I'll write more about the book's evolution in coming weeks, but for now I'll just say that I'm overwhelmed by how the book came together, especially with Susan's and Glen's excellent artistry. At the risk of sounding trite, I'm grateful to Glen for giving me the opportunity to put together and to sell something really cool about stuff I think about all the time. Even if you're not as word-nerdy as I am, you might find something to resonate with in the book, so come check it out and pass it on to anyone you know who suffers from logophilia.

Revisiting the Man in the Red Jacket

2013-09-19T11:02:00.000-06:00

I've written before about an experience I had running one morning when a passerby asked me a question that thereafter I couldn't get out of my head. So I wrote a poem about it. The poem, "For the Man in the Red Jacket," was honorably mentioned in Mormon Artist's first (and so far only) contest issue. A couple years later, it was reprinted in Fire in the Pasture, and recently BYU Studies picked it up for volume 52.3. In lieu of that fact, I thought I'd revisit the poem. So here's me reading it.

Happy listening.

Some Thoughts on Dissertating and Sonosophy

2013-09-13T11:49:00.000-06:00

I finished a draft of my dissertation intro last night. Here's a wordle of the chapter text to (sort of) prove it; it shows the preoccupations of my language, foremost among them being Caldiero, work, performance, words. Go figure, huh? Anyway, technically speaking, I should have written the introduction last, after everything else in the dissertation was pretty well established. But I didn't. Will that turn out to be a mistake when I finish the project and realize I may need to redo the intro to fit the actual end-product? Maybe. I'm not too concerned, though. I needed to feel my way back into the project and writing the introduction helped renew my vision of where and how I want to pursue my exploration of sonosophy. I did something similar with Field Notes on Language and Kinship and it seemed to work pretty well in terms of keeping myself aligned with what I wanted the book to look like. So: fingers crossed that I haven't shot my dissertation progress in the foot by writing the intro first.

Not only did beginning with the intro help me renew my vision of a project that's been simmering on the back burner for too long (WAY too long, if you ask my wife), it also helped me establish my personal stake in the subject, which I've stated as follows:

Sonosophy demands that I remove the mask of scholarly dispassion and objectivity, that I put myself on the line in order to meet my subject face to face, to be known by others as I seek to know them. It demands that I open myself to the world’s manifold figures and forms, to the beings, the objects, and the ideas with which I share space. It demands that I listen deeply for and to their presence, that I let myself be moved as they move, that I feel deeply into their experience and let myself feel that experience deeply.

The intro serves as my opening statement, then. In addition to relating what sonosophy demands of me, it also traces the development of my relationship with sonosopher and sonosophy, from my first encounter with the name "Alex Caldiero" to my own attempts to apply his sonosophic methods in performance. In the process, I illustrate the deep influence Alex has had on me as an observer, a performer, and a human. It also introduces the ethnographic methods I’ll be using throughout the dissertation to explore Alex's work and its functions and implications for language users. And my use of these methods segues well into my methodology chapter, which I started as soon as I finished the intro.

In short, then: I'm actively dissertating, for real now. No more teasing. Ima get this thing done.

Forthcoming, Part II

2013-09-11T12:19:00.000-06:00

Last Wednesday I teased the last page of my forthcoming book. Today I'll share one of the first: the title page. That's right: I'm revealing the title of this *uhm-hmm* much anticipated volume. (Although if you looked closely at the bio note included with the poems I had published on The Likewise Folio, which I posted about last Friday, this post won't give you anything new book title-wise.)

If you can't make out the words in the pic, the title is Field Notes on Language and Kinship. As I noted in my Likewise Folio bio note, it's a multi-genre book. What I didn't say there, though, is that it includes original poems (from me, of course) and prose I've written about or in response to poetry. Here's the full description:

In Field Notes on Language and Kinship, Tyler Chadwick follows poetry wherever it leads him, from acts of analysis and interpretation to poetic inspiration, from remembering to deliberate living and becoming. The book records many of his encounters with poems and poets from his anthology, Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-first Century Mormon Poets (El Cerrito, California: Peculiar Pages, 2011). These encounters took shape in various ways as he revisited Fire in the Pasture the many months after it was published. For example, an image from one of the anthology’s poems reminded him of a different poem he had read—so he wrote a response that makes a connection between them. Or a line from a poem recalled an experience from his personal life (or foretold one he would have)—and he captured the moment as a memoirist. Or a passage from a poem prompted him to explore the poem’s ideas in a larger context of thought—and he slipped into the role of an essayist. Or an excerpt from a poem inspired a poetic response—so he used the lines as a starting point to create his own poetry.

In the process of sharing his encounters with Fire in the Pasture, Chadwick explains how he came to love poetry and why it continues to speak to him as a reader, a poet, and a human being. He also explores ways in which language, as an environment humans construct and inhabit together, can help us build or break down kinship bonds. Along the way, he reveals key moments from his life: as a Latter-day Saint missionary learning from New Zealand’s people and their social and natural environments; as a son, a grandson, a brother, a husband, and young father observing and interacting with his family members during everyday experiences; as a young scholar exploring the practices and probing the limits of his discipline; and as a lifelong Mormon deeply engaged by the theological and cultural promise of his religion. Through it all we learn how poems serve as his touchstones of remembering and of his efforts to live well.

The eight artworks reproduced in Field Notes on Language and Kinship were created specially for the book by Susan Krueger-Barber, who was commissioned for the project by Glen Nelson of Mormon Artists Group. Krueger-Barber’s collages converse both with Chadwick’s narratives and with Fire in the Pasture, adding another level and genre of storytelling to each book.

Stay tuned for more on the book, including the release date, which is yet to be determined.

"Digital scholarship is happening"

2013-09-09T13:26:00.001-06:00

Or so Amy E. Earhart and Andrew Jewell claim in their 2010 book The American Literature Scholar in the Digital Age. I linked into the book this morning when I was considering ways of sharing my dissertation online and seeking feedback from others as I work on it. I'd come across a WordPress plugin about a year ago that I was trying to track down again. It's called CommentPress and it looks like a really cool way to share texts online and to have others comment in the margins of each paragraph, rather than at the bottom of the post. We'll see how it goes, if/when I get it installed for my project.

Anyway, while I was scanning the "About CommentPress" page looking for links to example projects, I followed the link in paragraph 12 to a project Shana Kimball apparently spear-headed: digitalculturebooks. Kimball is the Head of Publishing Services, Outreach, and Strategic Development for the University of Michigan library and digitalculturebooks is "an imprint of the University of Michigan Press dedicated to publishing innovative work in new media studies and digital humanities." Their "primary goal is to be an incubator for new publishing models in the humanities and social sciences." Pretty exciting stuff, if you ask me. Then again, since I started writing about literature online, teaching writing and literature online, and thinking about how digital media affect our interactions with literature, I've become increasingly interested in the digital humanities. And I think it's time I became more systematic about my approach to the field.

Because of this, the first featured image on the page---the cover of Earhart and Jewell's book---made my heart skip a beat, so I linked through and read the introduction. It basically positions the book in the rapidly evolving work of digital scholarship and seeks to discuss how that work is---or ought to be---impacting how scholars of American literature approach and share their research. It touches on ways in which the digital humanities are calling into question traditional methods of humanities scholarship and publishing, which are often quite inertial. Hence the authors' statement: "Digital scholarship is happening." Not only does "happening" suggest that digital scholarship is a pretty hip undertaking ("Their totally happening, man!"), the present progressive tense suggests that it's in a continual state of becoming and that its future and its effectiveness will be determined by what scholars do with it in the here-and-now. This necessarily includes an element of risk, especially since many academic institutions don't always recognize scholarship published via digital means. But I think the innovative work of digital scholars is changing that. That's my hope, anyway.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to making my way through this book (and this one, too) and to applying what I learn as a scholar, a teacher, and an editor.

I've gone and done Likewise*

2013-09-06T20:19:00.000-06:00

(*)

Last week The Likewise Folio, a pretty rad online poetry rag, ran two of my poems: "{ }" and "Rua: An Elegy in Holes." Both appear in my forthcoming book, so consider this another tease. And, bonus: you can listen to me read "{ }" via the embedded player at the end of this post. Frabjous day, right?

Two things about "{ }": 1) It's an unrhymed sonnet (I don't do rhymed verse very often—not sure why). 2) It was inspired by this video on mapmaker Jerry Gretzinger.

Forthcoming

2013-09-04T23:21:00.001-06:00

Earlier today I signed the colophon pages for the limited run special edition of my forthcoming book. I'll tease the title later. For now, here's a glimpse at my John Hancock and the stack of signed papers that will soon be bound as part of the book's final signature.

You'll notice my name's not alone on the page. Utah-based artist Susan Krueger-Barber contributed to the project with some artworks commissioned especially for the book. More on that—and more—to come.

Commemorating Mormonism and/through Poetry

2012-04-06T13:23:00.001-06:00

Come commemorate with me on AMV.

The ramble and catch of my tumblelog

2011-10-21T15:32:00.001-06:00

I haven't been chasing many clouds lately, at least around here. And I'm okay with that. Life's crazy. I'm busier than I've ever been. Yadayadayada. But I've recently started to sidle up to Tumblr. So follow me there. Or not. Whatever. Just know there will be shorter posts, more poets, more poetries, more poetics there.

I'm just sayin'.

BYU-Idaho Teaching & Learning Conference

2011-07-06T21:51:00.001-06:00

Last week I posted a conference proposal-in-progress. This week I've got the proposal-as-submitted. Any thoughts are welcome.

----------

Title: “Would that All God’s Children Were Poets”: On Teaching the Virtue of Words

Proposal:

As an online writing instructor, I view it as my primary responsibility to help my students begin to grapple with the ethical implications of language use, to help them understand more deeply the responsibilities communicators have when writing, speaking, and/or listening to others. This philosophy of responsible communication centers on four main things:

1. Alma's faith in the persuasive potential of spiritually-sensitive language. Mormon calls this “the virtue of the word of God” (Alma 31:5); it can also be characterized as what writer Patricia Karamesines calls the rhetoric of belief, which, in her words, “labors to close the gap between people and between a people and that to which it aspires, like the company of God.”

2. God’s counsel to Joseph Smith about how to access power in the priesthood and to most effectively influence others for good (see D&C 121:41-46). Especially germane to the issue of ethical language use is God’s statement that “no power or influence can or ought to be maintained [. . .] , only by persuasion” (D&C 121:41; italics mine)—persuasion being the subject of rhetorical education at least since the ancient Greeks.

3. The idea—which is closely related to number two and which was first explored at length by philosopher J.L. Austin—that we can use language to act upon the world, to influence others in ways that compel them to action without violating the principles of moral agency. My main interest here is on the ways in which carefully-crafted language can open minds and spirits to new possibilities and new relationships and transform knowledge, behavior, and relationships in the process. By carefully-crafted language I mean poetry and rhetorically-sensitive prose, e.g., prose marked by such figures of speech as metaphor, metonymy, parallelism, etc., and with a keen awareness of audience, a well-defined argument, and clarity of voice and tone.

4. The ethical, empathic affect of generous, rhetorical listening (a principle developed in depth by rhetoricians Krista Ratcliffe and Wayne Booth), of making ourselves vulnerable to others’ language, to others’ stories such that we can enter into their experiences and, like Christ, work to bridge the distance between Self and Other.

In my presentation I will elaborate on these ideas, drawing from the work of prophets, poets, philosophers, rhetoricians, and scholars of language and mind in order to explore how these principles inform my study of language and my teaching of the foundations of writing and reasoning in FDENG 101 Online.

Slam Poetry's (Disappointing) Spokesmovie

2011-07-01T16:05:00.001-06:00

Mark Levin's Slam (1998)

I didn't like this award-winning, much-acclaimed film as much as I was hoping to. Don't get me wrong, it was okay and it makes a decent social statement, but it's disconnected and, frankly, a little bit strange. But maybe that strangeness is a result of the vastly different worlds these characters and I inhabit. Overall, however, I just didn't find the story that compelling.

It follows aspiring poet Raymond Joshua (played by real-life poet Saul Williams, whose work I really like) from his wanderings through a D.C. ghetto selling marijuana, sharing poems, and contemplating his dreams (whatever they really are) to his arrest for possession and his short time in prison, where he meets Lauren Bell (Sonja Sohn), a writing teacher who volunteers at the prison teaching inmates and who quickly becomes Ray's love interest.

Ray tracks Lauren down after he gets bailed out of prison and, after a backyard poetry reading, they have sex—Ray convinces her they should because he wants to live in this moment; what a line—followed by a big, dramatic fight the next morning, though I'm not 100% what that fight's about. They part ways, but the tension gets resolved when Ray shows up at the poetry slam Lauren invited him to check out. When she stands to slam, she dedicates the performance (which I didn't think was that great) to this promising new poet she's just met. (Yes, she means Ray.) After she finishes, Ray gathers enough guts to get on stage and he gives a strong performance (much stronger than hers) to an awestruck audience, then he hides in the bathroom, where he and Lauren talk for a minute about his potential. He then tells her he has to get some air and goes running through the streets of D.C., ending his night—and the movie—staring up at the Washington Monument.

The film does have some strong moments, say, when Ray freestyles with the inmate next-door (WARNING: strong language) or when he performs to break up a fight in the prison courtyard or when he stands in Lauren's backyard or takes the stage in his first poetry slam (though it's really less a slam and more of an open mic). I just wish it had more of these compelling performances and less of the brooding melodrama that takes place in-between.

Ah, well. At least I can watch the good parts on YouTube.

"The Sun Never Sets On the English Language"

2011-06-30T12:46:00.001-06:00

Or on Open University's pedagogical reach. Or for that matter on YouTube's democracy.

@openculture just posted a link on Twitter to OU's video series "The History of English in Ten Minutes." I couldn't help reposting, mostly because, well, it's a witty animated journey through words. And who doesn't love witty, animated, documentary-type videos on YouTube? And words, words, words.

That's what I thought.

As a teaser, here's one of my favorites: "The English of Science"

A Proposal-in-Progress

2011-06-30T09:58:00.000-06:00

Following are some thoughts I've been developing for a presentation proposal I plan to submit for BYU-Idaho's fall faculty conference. The conference theme is "Improving the Quality of our Teaching and the Depth of our Knowledge."

As I've pursued my thinking on this topic of responsible language use and the virtue of words (an interest that really undergirds my pursuits as a parent, teacher, poet, and scholar), I realized I've been summarizing ideas that I've been pursuing for some time now but have never really collected in one place. It was kind of a liberating moment for me because it seeks to bring together under one tent the disparate thinkers who have influenced my own nascent philosophies of language and human relationships. So I'm reveling in the serendipity before it makes for the door.

Anyway: the proposal-thoughts-in-progress. Feedback welcome.

On the Virtue of Teaching Words and On Teaching the Virtue of Words: What I've Learned About Language from FDENG 101 (Online)

Pricking Hearts (Jarom 1:12)
More Powerful Effect (Alma 31:5)

Language not only as a call to action but as a form of acting. Language enables us to act upon the world. Language as a means to exercise agency.

Teaching students that language is a form of action by, first, the language I use to frame their rhetorical agency/to frame them in the classroom—as seekers of knowledge whose language is a form of inquiry and knowledge. That language is a means of ordering the world and our experience of it. That language is a means of exerting our agency and influence in the world

Through the rhetoric of the question: Cecil O. Samuelson on questions—learning to ask effective questions

Through generous rhetorical listening, becoming vulnerable to another's language (and its intent)

Through the mutual pursuit of understanding (see Booth's rhetorology)

Rhetoric as a means of regulating behavior, yes, but it ought to/can go much deeper than that. The right language at the right time can change souls, can persuade people toward greater faith, toward transformation

Our relationship with God through the Holy Ghost is in part rhetorical. The power of the HG as a rhetorical act. Makes much sense if we consider that the angels speak by the power of the HG, speaking the truth in a way that resonates with our spirits and persuades us to change

Language as a means of proving contraries, of approaching, exploring, understanding the paradoxes and ambiguities of human experience and relationships

Language as a metonymic expression of and means to deepen human connection with one another, with the natural world, with God

Language as a situated, embodied act

Promoting rhetorical responsibility

No Power or Influence, Only By the Acts of Language

Faith as Firm Persuasion

A Memorable Fancy

Raising Others into a Perception of the Infinite

Thinkers:
• Wayne Booth (rhetorology)
• J.L. Austin (performative utterances)
• Krista Ratcliffe (rhetorical listening)
• Kenneth Burke (rhetoric as identification)
• William Blake ? (Marriage of Heaven and Hell)
• Patricia Karamesines (using language responsibly)
• Richard Marback (on vulnerability on rhetoric)
• Kristie Fleckenstein (on embodied literacies and a poetics of teaching)
• Alex Caldiero ? (defamiliarizing language to persuade others to a new perspective on the world)
• Joseph Smith (on language, the pursuit of knowledge, responsibly exerting our power and influence through acts of persuasion [rhetorical acts], and God)
• David A. Bednar (on seeking learning by study and by faith)
• Mark Canada ("Students as Seekers in Online Courses")
• Mormon (on the virtue of the word of God)

Marco Iacoboni. Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others. [L3]

2011-06-15T10:37:00.002-06:00

Iacoboni, Marco. Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008. Print.

[Edit to add: 7/1/2011] I read this one on my Kindle. Here are my highlights and notes (note: I did far more highlighting as I read this one than I did note-taking.]

Iacoboni details the discovery and significance of mirror neurons in an accessible way, showing how parts of the brain come alive while we're performing certain tasks or experiencing emotions and how those same parts of the brain also come alive (though to a lesser extent) while we watch or think about someone else performing the same tasks or experiencing the same emotions. In this light, perception and action are combined. Follows the application of brain imaging techniques in various circumstances to assess how mirror neurons are activated (or not) and how they influence (or don't influence) human behavior in various circumstances: for instance, in our grasping the workings of other minds and the intentions behind others' actions, in the mother-infant relationship, in language development, in the development of empathy (the forging of understanding and connection between Self and Other), in imitative violence, in consumer choice, in politics, in the autistic brain. The workings of mirror neurons may provide a biological explanation for the relationship forged between performer and audience during a performance.

(Image source)

Come slip between atmospheres of memory

2011-04-23T08:09:00.001-06:00

My poem, "Vestment," was featured at WIZ the 19th. Gustave Doré and a New Zealand fern leaf made it into this one. But you'll have to make the connection between the two yourself.

The Realm of Potential Being at the Waffle House

2011-04-23T07:52:00.001-06:00

I'm a day late shouting this from the wilderness, but virtual friend and poet Terresa Wellborn turned the spotlight onto one of my poems Thursday. Link through and come enjoy some chocolate chip waffles as you dip into the realm of potential being.