And so I returned to perusing the Norton Anthology again (dear, dear, Norton Anthology). While many essays were of interest, most seemed to have little connection to comp, and I was unable to locate anything worthy of my final exploratory source (Alas!). Thus thwarted by the official literary imperial that is Norton, I decided to turn to a far more dubious and expansive source: the Google.
After unsuccessful "poetry and college composition" and "poetry and freshmen composition" searches, I searched "poets on teaching college composition," thinking that surely poets' experiences teaching college composition would incorporate poetry. Instead Google decided that what I really needed was to get a Poetry Degree 100% online, and to learn how to teach college mathematics using poetry, and to know the secrets of using my appreciation of poetry to earn a six-figure job! After learning all this, I modified my search and was directed to the Poetry Foundations "Learning Lab." The Learning Lab proved fruitless, as did a general search of the Poetry Foundation, as did another handful of Google searches. Finally, after an hour of interesting but essentially forward-motion-futile searching, I found myself at a loss. Norton had disappointed me, Google had done me dirty, and even the Poetry Foundation remained unsatisfactory. Bugger it all. What next?

Well, not knowing what else to do, I began reading back through my previous exploratory blogs and realized I had never turned my attention back to Claudia Rankine's Citizen, a text I had been initially been very curious about exploring for its poetic potential in the composition class. And a text that would most definitely provide a poet's eye view into issues relevant to composition. So to Citizen, for my fifth and final source, I go!

Citizen takes an unflinching look at what it means to be a citizen conscious of the current state of racial relations in "post-racial" America. In it, Rankine brings together traditional verse, prose, and visual elements to explore the place of "blackness" within Western Culture. In the context of this current exploration, I find Citizen particularly relevant for several reasons. First, it deals with current issues of race, pernicious social inequality, prejudice, and privilege, discussions of which have a ready, if not necessary, place in the college composition classroom. Second, when talking about how one might utilize poetry in composition, Citizen presents itself as an answer. Citizen itself operates as a model of what it looks like to incorporate various mediums and strategies of rhetoric into one cohesive work, a work that brings together poetry, prose, and visual elements toward a single end. Third, Citizen exemplifies how we as individuals best, most fully, consider language not simply as essay, or as argument, or as poetry, or as prose, or as visual rhetoric, or as solipsistic reflection, or as a product of the other, or as oppressive power, or as any other single dimension, but as a compilation and more than sum of all of these various elements. In short, Citizen provides an example of how to might look at language holistically, and thus, for me, points the way toward a more holistic approach to teaching composition.

So, to answer the hypothetical from earlier in the essay, yes Citizen could be the book on that table. Further, to get back to the original question, yes poetry can and, I believe, should have a vital role in the composition classroom. This role certainly includes helping to teach style, and rhetorical analysis, and close reading, and rhetorical grammar, and the joy of language for language sake. Yet even beyond all this, the place of poetry in composition studies is to facilitate a more holistic approach to language: how it is invented, arranged, stylized, remembered, and delivered, how it comes to take on both individual and collective importance in the world within which we live. It is this holistic approach, exemplified by Rankine's Citizen, I'm eager to continue to explore for my own composition classes.

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen. Minneapolis: Gray Wolf, 2014. Print.

Marianne Moore, "Humility, Concentration, and Gusto."

I sat down at my desk in Tate Hall 004 on the day class was canceled and though, I don't have the foggiest idea what I'm going to read next for this essay. The sun was out; it was cold; clouds white-hot drifted in the neon-blue sky--I notice. None of this helps me carry on. I'm in a foul mood: my English 1000 class was deader than snot dried in an old rug, crusty and droopy eyed, and I've got that sour, am I really cut out to be a teacher taste in my mouth. That doesn't help me carry on either. So, as one does when there is little hope left, as the wheels spin in the metaphor you've made of your mind, I actually did that thing I tell my students to do but rarely comply with; I looked at the works cited page of the last essay I had read for this project.

Well I struck out, but I struck out so hard and in such a swingingly wild fashion I ended up hugging a 66 year old Marianne Moore essay to my breast, tears about to brim in my eyes for gratefulness. I will spare the brunt of the details but in short this occurred thus: works cited of the Allen article mentions T.S. Eliot, I remember there's an essay of his I've been meaning to read, Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry please, hmmm? Nope, that essay--"Tradition and the Individual Talent"--doesn't apply, but what's this essay by Ezra Pound? D.H. Lawrence? Langston Hughes? Hart Crane?, etc., and boom Marianne Moore's "Humility, Concentration, and Gusto." Could it work? Might it work? Well, I won't really know until I read it. But it suddenly occurred to me that my ambling search had not been purposeless. No, part of me must have know what I was seeking: a benediction or blessing or word of guidance from one of the great masters of poetry. For, as of now, I've looked at the practical application of poetry in the classroom, and a bit at the theoretical principles that under gird a pedagogy of poetry in the composition classroom, but I haven't turned to the greats of the poetic realms to see how they view the interaction between poetry and prose composition. And since I can't think of a better place to start than Marianne Moore, so shall I proceed.

In this essay Moore discusses the three qualities she most values in poetry: humility, concentration, and gusto (994). Now, even on the service, these three qualities appear to me to be desirable in other modes of writing aside from poetry. However, Moore makes these connections to other forms of writing explicit, couching her arguments in terms of persuasive rhetoric, literary criticism, and policy making alongside poetry.

It was a bit difficult to ferret out exactly how Moore defines her key values: humility, concentration, and gusto. Her use of reference upon reference upon exemplar with little intermediary explanation or analysis makes the lines of her rhetoric somewhat hard to comprehend. Yet, if one assumes Moore is aiming for simplicity in her consideration of these values (an assumption that is warranted given her acceptance of the idea that "style [depends]... on simplicity" (995), they become comprehensible. By "humility" Moore means "quiet objectiveness" that accepts one's indebtedness to the ideas and works of others. Moore embodies this definition of "humility" in her text as she writes with unadorned simplicity often referencing, quoting, and alluding to the works of other writers and poets (995). By "concentration" Moore means a specific focus that opens in its compression to potential ambiguity (996). By "gusto" Moore means the force of individual expression working itself out in contrast to the normative patterns of language and expression (997-998). Overall Moore errs on the side of demonstrating these values (humility, concentration, and gusto) rather than explicitly defining them.

I must admit, reading this essay I was at first quite worried I had embarked on a fruitless investigation as far as application to the composition classroom goes. Sure, humility, concentration, and gusto were important to writing "valuable" poetry, but they didn't seem to have much application to English 1000. Yet, Moore's succinct yet striking summary of her main points in her final paragraphs (her answer to "So what?" "Who cares?") saved the day. Moore writes, "All of which is to say that gusto thrives on freedom, and freedom in art, as in life, is the result of a discipline imposed by ourselves. Moreover, any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others....To summarize: Humility is an indispensable ally, enabling concentration to heighten gusto... The thing is to see the vision and not deny it; to care and admit that we do" (999-1000).

Granted in this conclusion, Moore is speaking directly to the poet and the artist and not to the freshman composition student. But I was struck by how what she writes here applies to composition on multiple fronts. First, there is this idea that freedom comes as the result of "discipline imposed by ourselves": a striking tension between individual will and the constraints we place upon that will (999). Such is the milieu of the composition classroom (or any other class for that matter), where, in my opinion, the most successful students are precisely those who are able to find freedom within the classroom space--a freedom that derives directly from their ability to impose the necessary discipline upon themselves without the outside enforcement of the instructor or classmates. In short, students who excel in the composition classroom are those who take ownership of their writing. Second, the idea that if you are "overwhelmingly honest about pleasing" yourself in your writing you are "almost sure to please others" (999). Amen. How hard I strive to get students to follow their fancy, to write what they want to write. And, yes, in agreement with Moore, I have noticed that when students please themselves with their writing, I, as a reader and assessor of that writing, am also pleased. Third, I believe in composition, as well as poetry, good work begins with humility--with one figuring out and being honest about the place from which s/he writes, taking of airs, aiming for sincerity, simplicity and "quiet objectivity." Humility is truly an "indispensable ally" or as T.S. Eliot put it, "The only wisdom we can hope to acquire / Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless" ("East Coker" Part II). Fourth, yes, "The thing is to see the vision and not deny it; to care and admit that we do" (1000). In so much as what we teach and study in the composition classroom connects to the way we live our lives, it is above all else necessary that whatever illumination our writing and exploration and research and questioning brings not be denied: "The thing is to see the vision and not deny it." I love that. It's so simple yet challenging. For we see visions every day and deny them, as do our students. One of the major ways we do this is adopting an attitude of indifference. If we don't care, then it becomes as easy as a shrug of the shoulders to deny the vision. Thus Moore's follow up phrase "to care and admit that we do" acts as a helpful caveat, reminder, and benediction. It is, after all, far easier not to care, or, in caring, to refuse to admit our concern. Courage is required to care: a risking one's person. And it can be terrifying to admit to yourself that you give even a single damn. If I had a nickle for each faux-apathetic, threadbare, nothing-you-gonna-say-will-bother-me-none stare that I have faced in a semester-and-a-half of teaching, my stipend would be big-city competitive, baby! If I had to give a nickle for every time I've hid behind the same facade, well, shoot, I would've just lost all my new nickles.

Thus, to close, I think Moore's essay and her three values really matter in the context of poetry in the classroom  because they highlight the potential for poetry to convey not only humility, concentration, and gusto, but also visions, and the willingness to accept those visions, and the daring to care about those visions. Conveyances applicable to comp. and to life.

After looking at Moore's primary values of poetry and seeing how they apply to composition, I am eager to see what other great poets may have to say about the composition of poetry that might apply rather directly to the teaching of composition.


Moore, Marianne. "Humility Concentration, and Gusto." The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry Vol. 1. Eds. Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, Robert O'Clair. New York: Norton, 2003. Print. 994-1000. 

Allen, Paul. "Something Beyond Meaning": The Poet's Problem In Freshman Composition."

My quest to grapple with some of the potential pitfalls of poetry in the classroom led me to Paul Allen’s essay “‘Something Beyond Meaning’: The Poet’s Problem In Freshman Composition.” In this essay, Allen dives right into the dilemma’s facing instructors who wish to include poetry in the composition classroom. He writes, “Trying to include the study of poetry in freshman composition, particularly contemporary poetry with no critical history, leads some of us to a dilemma. Either we allow our students to gush about Self, Issues, and Awareness or we force them into analysis that requires too much time for hammering at them with terminology and convention” (79). Allen argues freshman need more structure than allowing the former sort of open “gushing” and “less specialization” than is required for the latter in depth analysis” (79).

Additionally Allen points how poetry acting as a source of mystery, wonder, abstraction, and pure pleasure (along with other elements that tend to shun critical evaluation) can create a notable discord between the nature of a poem and the instructor’s assignment that a student analyze and interpret a poem (81). Further, while admitting that poetry can be used effectively to teach “analysis, synthesis, logic, and close reading,” Allen argues “…these skills are better served through such analysis of genres other than poetry. To teach them [freshman composition students] to write logical papers analyzing poetry is to disabuse students of what poetry is (according to poets) and to kill the essential quality of poetry, which is its magic” (82).

Yet, to be clear, Allen does not argue against having freshman compositions read poetry as part of the course. In fact, he recommends students read collections by poets that the instructor likes and thinks the students will like (82-83). And he encourages students to write out from these poetry collections (e.g. an assignment where they look through the collection and find 10-25 phrases they think would make good bumper stickers). What Allen warns against is having students write analysis papers about poetry, or the impulse to teach students the basics of analysis and rhetoric through poetry. Instead Allen envisions a classroom where students are engaging with poetry on the poetry terms: diving into the wonder and strangeness of reading poetry without the necessity of understanding (i.e. explicit meaning making) (83).

Allen provides several examples of assignments for which he uses poetry in freshman composition. I found these tremendously intriguing to the point that I’m honestly considering employing them in my own classes in the future. These assignments include: 1. Bumper Sticker (already mentioned) 2. Writing a personal essay incorporating one of the poetry phrases they found, thus allowing them to filter the poetry through their own experiences (84). 3. Using lines of poetry to aid in the freewriting process (the invention stage) about other essays or subjects (85). 4. Covering a poem with an index card and reading it line by line as a class. After each line the students share their expectations of what will come next. The goal being to delight in the surprise poetry often offers (85). 5. Challenging students to find odd or surprising phrases or sentences in the poetry (this can be a competition), which often leads to students discovering various poetic devices (86). 6. Have students mimic the poetic devices they discover (87). 8. Encouraging students to apply these devices, and riskier ways of presenting ideas within their own writing (87). 9. Having students use a poem (contemporary poems are best) as a template for their own passage of prose (mimicking the sentence structure of the original) (87-88). (Ok, just want to note the example passages he gives from students pretty much blew me away. The variance in their sentence structure, the rhythm and flow of their prose are remarkable! Could be a great way to give a practical lesson in varying sentence length, and taking risks in their prose style.).

To sum these example assignments/activities up, Allen writes, “Thus students may learn to write better prose through poetry, without having to write about poetry in such a way that its essential quality is lost, its magic, its ‘something beyond meaning’” (89).

Overall, I love how this essay flipped the risks I was imagining for poetry in the comp. classroom on their head. Instead of a concern for whether poetry might not have a place in composition because it doesn’t appropriately teach students the analytic/rhetorical skills they need to succeed as college writers, Allen highlights the concern that having freshman composition students analyze poetry is most risky because it reduces the essence of poetry to simple analysis: the students don’t need to be protected from the poetry, our love of poetry needs to be protected from the analytic milieu of freshman composition.  I also found myself very much impressed and inspired by Allen’s recommended use of poetry as a tool for encouraging surprise and delight in language while teaching students to write more fluently and riskily.

However I take issue with Allen’s closing paragraph. He concludes, “Critical analysis of poetry is a legitimate intellectual exercise. But to teach freshman to write, it is not a necessary one” (90). However, “not necessary” is a long way from an explicit warning not to try to teach poetry to freshman composition students. Thus this final statement comes across as rather milquetoast, as if Allen felt some need to qualify his arguments. After all, one could argue that even the most universally agreed upon essential elements of teaching freshman composition are “not necessary” to teaching freshman to write. Sure we all have our pedagogical hobby horses, but when pushed to it, it’s hard to imagine a rhetorical foundation that would allow any of us to argue our favorite methods of instruction are absolutely necessary to teach freshman writing. We might argue for the efficacy of our methods, recount how—in our experience—they are superior to other methods we have tried, even actively preach that this is the best way to teach. Yet as far as we might go in favor of our methods there remains a certain ludicrous hubris to claiming your pedagogy is “necessary” in order to teach freshman to write. 

Allen, Paul. "Something Beyond Meaning": The Poet's Problem In Freshman Composition." Writing On The Edge 13.1 (2002): 79-90. ERIC. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.

Marvin Bell, "Poetry And Freshman Composition":

Still working off my informants bevy of helpful advice and sources, I decided to dive into an intriguing sounding essay entitled "Poetry and Freshman Composition," an essay penned by none other than the great Marvin Bell. This particular essay seemed fitting as it would hopefully help me make the leap from poetry's fit in the general university curriculum to poetry's fit specifically in freshman level composition (by gee, by golly, by gum that's exactly what I teach!). And as my beginning research question was about the place of poetry in the composition classroom this essay promises to be a winner (almost as if Marvin Bell knew I would be researching this very topic and wrote an essay just for me. Ah, garsh, Marvin, thanks a million!). Now as for my means of accessing this winning essay, it is once again the computer, the interwebs, the electronic screen burning out my retinas. So the brain flames to tension at the neural roots: beautiful information and bright pain battle to reign the gray matter's gnarled plains. Yeah, I'm about up to here reading off a screen (he says subtly smoothing his buxom jowls). Oh well, Bell has been so kind, I shall be attentive. Preach it darling, let it ring, the Marvin of Bell's now to sing.

I was immediately struck by Bell's caveat against high-jacking the composition classroom with literature (Jesus, Jesus, Mary, and James and Petey too some one save us from so much ado about books and such).  He writes, “I am not advocating the study of literature in place of the study of composition, a substitution made in deference to the instructors’ interests and comfort. The emphasis…is usually placed on the content of that literature…The student is taught to read, and, secondarily as well as indirectly, to write” (Bell 1). This warning stood out to me as apt because I think this is one of the major risks (if not the most major risk) an instructor takes when trying to find a place for poetry in the composition classroom--i.e. that students will learn about poetry, how to read and write it, more than they will learn about writing a college level essay. Bell seeks to navigate this difficulty by insisting that he only advocates the study of poetry in composition "insofar as the study is focused on literary techniques applicable to the writing of compositions” (1). 

In particular Bell lists 11 ways he believes the study of poetry can be directly applicable/similar to the writing of composition. Studying poetry helps students learn: 1. To attune to the subtleties of language (e.g. tone) 2. To express ambiguity and grapple with incoherence 3. To navigate the tension between objectivity and subjectivity 4. To make claims based on concrete, observable phenomena 5. To see how language shapes the connotations of a thought 6. The benefits of concision 7. What qualities make an effective introduction and conclusion 8. That experiences are full of complexity and open to multiple interpretations 9. To develop a specific "point" throughout a composition 10. Familiarity with an extremely wide variety of different style and sorts of diction in a relatively small space 11. Overall, to be a close reader (Bell 2-3).  

Bell qualifies these 11 benefits of poetry by stating he means to emphasize the benefits of contemporary poetry, as "non-contemporary" poetry presents unnecessary cultural and linguistic pitfalls to students. I'm going to go ahead and let Bell slide in this qualification. Though, before doing so (so I guess not really doing so) I would like to question whether a blanket favoring of the contemporary over the "historic", as Bell does here, doesn't quite bluntly relate to our students the primacy of our own moment: a sort of generational narcissism that, while rampant in our society, might deserve interrogation (e.g. a place for "non-contemporary" poetry in the classroom). 

Practically speaking Bell recommends instructors interested in using poetry in the classroom draw from literary journals such as Poetry. He provides a few examples of poems and poets he's used in class, but also recommends that in the poetry they are assigned composition students be exposed to "as many kinds of subjects, developed and expressed in as many ways, as is possible" (Bell 5). 

After reading this essay, I am grateful for yet more reassurance that there is a place for poetry in the composition classroom and, also, to find expressed clearly many of the benefits I myself have seen in teaching poetry to freshman composition students. Yet, I still feel rather lost as to specifics of a pedagogy rooted (or at least partially rooted) in poetry, specifically one that doesn't fall prey to privileging my interests and comfort over the intent of the composition class (i.e. teaching students to write in an academic context). Also, just because poetry can work in the classroom doesn't necessarily mean that it should or that it given a specific classroom setting it would be the most effective method for teaching. With these concerns in mind, moving forward I would like to read more about potential pitfalls of poetry in composition classes, the specific pedagogy and practice that make poetry viable for the composition class, and perhaps investigate a poetry-based comp. class (i.e.  look at assignments, the syllabus, and in class activities).  

Bell, Marvin. “Poetry And Freshman Composition.” n.p.: The Journal of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, 1964. National Council of Teachers of English.  ERIC. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

Source 1: Writing Across and Against the Curriculum by Art Young

Tate Hall 004, 9:26 a.m., I sit down at my desk to dive into my first source to explore! Earlier in the week I received an email back regarding my inquiry for guidance. Now the waiting is over!

Upon recommendation, the first essay I will turn to will be Art Young's "Writing Across and Against the Curriculum." I accessed the essay through a pdf. file and read it on my computer.

In this essay, Young discusses the ability poetry offers students to express meaningful thoughts and emotions not readily accessible to them in "disciplinary language and context" (472). In this way, poetry becomes a means of "writing against" the dominant curriculum and academic discourse (472). To this end, Young devised a program entitled Poetry Across the Curriculum (PAC, corresponding to the idea of Writing Across the Curriculum) (475). He explains this program writing, “The purpose of poetry across the curriculum, as we conceive it, is not to teach students to be better poets but to provide opportunities for them to use written language to engage course content in meaningful ways” (475). Such use of counter-disciplinary language opens up the potential for more personal connections to and renewed understandings of the subject (475). Speaking specifically of students interacting with literature through poetry, Young provides eight goals he has for having his students write poetry:
"(1) to experience literature as producers as well as consumers; (2) to read poetry carefully and imaginatively; (3) to gain new understandings and perspectives about how poetry works; (4) to develop a personal connection (feelings and values) to the literature they are reading; (5) to pay close attention to the possibilities of language; (6) to express voice and to make discoveries about their own voices; (7) to behave as writers serious about the writing they do; and (8) to surprise themselves, each other, and me." (476-477)

To answer the question of why poetry, Young draws upon the theoretical framework of Britton et. al and their The Development of Language Abilities (11-18), which asserts that poetic writing involves a different kind of learning from transactional or functional writing, a type of writing that is often more likely to lead to creative problem solving and innovation (475-476).  He additionally discusses the practical power of poetry's succinctness and verbal intensity when compard to other forms of creative writing.

After reading this essay, I immediately gave a metaphoric whoop-bop-a-doo-whop! Yes I can, and should, use poetry liberally in my composition classes! Yet upon further reflection I became rather more reservedly pensive. How exactly can I work poetry into my classes in an effective manner? What about the resistance making students write poetry has often engendered in my experience? What about specific assignments? How specific to assignment requirements have to be? Though Young gave some examples--e.g. writing a poem in response to a specific piece of literature--I wonder about specific assignment sheets. 

Still, even with all these questions in place, on a personal level this essay resonated with me. Young's basic argument that we should take advantage of poetic writing in all disciplines in order to promote personal reflection, innovation, creative re-imaginings, and revitalized connections to subject materials rings true to me not just intellectually but also emotionally as I have seen in my own life poetic practice functioning in these ways. 

Young, Art. "Writing Across And Against The Curriculum." College Composition And Communication 54.3 (2003): 472-85. ERIC. Web. 4 Feb. 2015. 

The Beginning of the Question

February 1, 2015

It's Super Bowl Sunday, a national holiday according to NBC's six hours of "pregame" coverage. Two hours and forty minutes until game time, I perch thirty feet up at the corner of Broadway and Garth watching the gray rainy day give its best imitation of snow. There's fiddle music rising up inexplicably from the floors below. Ahead of me, the water tower looms dirty white against a relentlessly bland sky. Cars pass. I sit. Two hours to kill. Well, hell, why not 8010 exploratory essay? Let's get to it.

The question: How can poetry be integrated as fully and effectively as possible into the composition classroom?

My interest in this topic is rather simple to explain: 1. I'm a poet and thus maintain a vested interest in poetry. 2. Pedagogically speaking, I believe the best teaching stems from instructors being passionately engaged with the material they are teaching. 3. I do not possess a passion for much of the traditional composition curriculum (how to write a thesis, organizing arguments, topic sentences, etc.). 4. Unfortunately as far as how my passions run, I will likely have many more opportunities to teach composition (at least in the near future) than poetry. 5. Accepting numbers three and four, and still wanting to be as effective a teacher as possible in keeping with number two, I strive to do my best to design composition curriculum that keeps me, as the instructor, passionately engaged in the class. Thus poetry (see number one).

Touchdown! I think to myself, performing my most ludicrous and gyratory of end-zone celebrations. I am totally winning this essay! If this were the Super Bowl, I postulate, I am Katy Perry at halftime, I am Deon Sanders commentating, I am John Madden getting video games named for himself, I am one pace to be MVP. Sadly, thinking and recording this jock-rock-a-shock tirade has utterly derailed my exploration (unless the exploration, unbeknownst to me, has suddenly shifted into crafting poor sports metaphors). Fumble! Fumble! Fumble! Ah nuts! Where was I?

The question: Poetry composition? Will they be friends? How much? Does this ever go beyond friendship? Should it? The Book of Nightmares? Really?!! Dr. Strickland, that's bold. Very bold. But what about Citizen, a hybrid text, a socially-engaged hybrid text, a socially-engaged hybrid stunning text, a socially-engaged hybrid stunning masterpiece text, a socially-engaged hybrid stunning masterpiece current text? Can I teach that? Can I build a curriculum around that? Would be pedagogically sound? Say I just spelled "pedagogically" correctly! Say I like the sound of "pedagogically sound?" Say you had just purchased a vacation home on Pedagogically Sound. You walk through the door for the first time (you are a brave buyer, but hey it was a steal!). The house smells slightly of ash-dust, cigarette buts, damp cobwebs, and ginger-ale fizz. Just one streak of sunlight cuts the shadows illuminating a large oak desk in the corner. There's one book on that table, just one. You walk over and pick up the book. Could it be Citizen?

There's a bright red challenge flag on the field. Maybe a touchdown, maybe an interception. The only clear thing is that this last metaphor, the one about Pedagogical Sound--don't pretend you don't remember--has transported us from refocusing towards confusion once again. Consequently...

I wrote for advice to a former 8010 student who I was informed had written on a similar topic. By wrote I wish I mean that I had sat down at my kitchen table with a tidbit of tea and scrawled out my urgent request for guidance, carefully folded the paper up, stuffed it in an envelope, sealed that envelope, addressed it, forever stamped it, mailed, and waited. What I actually mean by wrote is "emailed." It was unexciting, there were no stamps, or tasteless paste, or even tidbits of tea involved. But the waiting for a reply? By George and Gina and Josephine and Jim, that's the very same!

I think how this is similar to when the lights went out during the super bowl a couple years ago. There we all were, 80 million of us, give or take, young and old, black and white, male and female, lovers and haters, waiting for the same thing, waiting for the lights to come back on, for the game to begin, for someone to win. So too our days are full of waiting: individually, collectively. And so too this essay will brim full with waiting. The tables set, the drinks are served, we only need a source. And, so, we wait.