I'm featured...

So for the past few months I been checking out Bonobos pants, which look awesome.  Sadly, they are also way out of my budget, or so I thought.  They have an amazing program for men who work in public service fields (like teachers, firefighters, police, etc.) who they are aware might not have the funds to procure their products.  

In order to qualify, you have to send them a brief bio and a pic, and in turn, they give you a discount code.  My bio was featured on Monday, and you can  read it here.   I haven't purchased any pants yet, but when I do, I'll let you know how they are. 

NPM - Day 8

How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual
by Pamela Spiro Wagner

First, forget everything you have learned, 
that poetry is difficult, 
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you, 
with your high school equivalency diploma, 
your steel-tipped boots, 
or your white-collar misunderstandings. 

Do not assume meanings hidden from you: 
the best poems mean what they say and say it. 

To read poetry requires only courage 
enough to leap from the edge 
and trust. 

Treat a poem like dirt, 
humus rich and heavy from the garden. 
Later it will become the fat tomatoes 
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table. 

Poetry demands surrender, 
language saying what is true, 
doing holy things to the ordinary. 

Read just one poem a day. 
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands 
like a daffodil offering its cup 
to the sun. 

When you can name five poets 
without including Bob Dylan, 
when you exceed your quota 
and don't even notice, 
close this manual.

NPM - Day 4

Today's poem is dedicated to Mama (Cassidy's grandmother). If you know her, you should know why.
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The Daffodils
by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

NPM - Day 3

Pied Beauty

by Gerard Manely Hopkins

 

Glory be to God for dappled things--

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;

       And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

 

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                     Praise Him

NPM - Day 2

My City

By James Weldon Johnson

When I come down to sleep death's endless night,
The threshold of the unknown dark to cross,
What to me then will be the keenest loss,
When this bright world blurs on my fading sight?
Will it be that no more I shall see the trees
Or smell the flowers or hear the singing birds
Or watch the flashing streams or patient herds?
No, I am sure it will be none of these. 

But, ah! Manhattan's sights and sounds, her smells,
Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thrill that comes
From being of her a part, her subtle spells,
Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums--
O God! the stark, unutterable pity,
To be dead, and never again behold my city!

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I taught this poem for the first time last year, and I fell in love with it.  If you've been to New York (and enjoyed it) then you might be able to empathize with the poem.

National Poetry Month

That's right people, after a close to 6 month absence from blogging, National Poetry Month has brought me out of my lack of inspiration.

I HATED poetry in high school, for the most part.  But my senior year, I came to love the works of John Donne, including his Holy Sonnets.  In college, I found more that I liked about poetry than I disliked, and now as a high school teacher, I love poetry.

Now, not all poems are equal, and i do like some poems that are slightly odd, but I like what I like. In honor of this month long celebration, I will periodically post some poems that I enjoy.

This first one is dedicated to my students, and anyone else who struggles with poetry.  I've learned that sometimes it is best just to try not to figure a poem out, but instead, just read and enjoy.

Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find our what it really means.

I Can't Wait...

Busy week - end of the nine weeks on Friday.  I took a break from grading tonight and found this on one of my blogs I read regularly.  Although there are many reasons why I do not want the end of this year to fly, this is by far my top reason for wanting 2009 to hurry up and get here.

Just so you know, I may have peed a little after watching this, that's how excited I am for LOST season 5 to start.  If you don't watch the show, take the time between now and January to catch up, I have seasons 1-3 on DVD if you want them, or you can watch them online here and click the "LAUNCH" button.

Good things at the end of the week

So some great things happened on Thursday and Friday this week.

#1. The Office Season Premiere - if you missed it, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Watch the clip...

#2. The Warrior Word

I'm teaching journalism this year, and my class of 8 students and I decided to restart the school newspaper. We had a contest to name the paper, which went over well. After we had the name, we worked for 2 weeks, and the first edition of The Warrior Word went to print on Friday. The paper was distributed to the students for free during lunch study halls, and it was a hit. I got compliments from both students and teachers on the quality of both the writing and the layout, the but all of the credit goes to the students. They worked hard, and I am very proud of them. There is both a print and an online edition, so if you'd like to see it, go check it out here. If you want to see the print edition, there is a link at the bottom of the front page that will allow you to download a PDF version. Please excuse the picture quality in the PDF; I don't know why they look like that, they were fine when it was printed.

Price Increases

So I know I haven't posted in a long time, so I'll give you a quick update on my teaching job.  I love it.  Things are going much better than last year; I don't feel like a Mac truck has plowed me over at the end of the day for starters.  I've also taken a lot from the hellacious year I had in Maysville, so my class runs much more smoothly.  I guess it's true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Anyways, moving on to the Pepsi logo to the left of the text.  I went to a convenience store today to buy a pop, and had my $1.50 ready when I pulled up to the drive-thru.  I the clerk then informed me that the price had gone up to $1.60.  Now, I'm not upset, I was just shocked because I remember  when you could get if for a dollar.  The other thing that shocked was the fact that I hadn't thought that the price had gone up to $1.50 all that long ago.  I think I was paying around $1.20 to $1.30 last spring in Maysville.  Anyways, have your dimes ready the next time you go to buy a Pepsi product.

*Sidebar - if you like Coke products, they haven't gone up -- yet

Back to School

Well, if you've been reading Cassidy's blog, you know that we have not had internet until yesterday at our new place.  While she's been dealing with that, I've been in final preparation mode for another year of teaching, in a new school. 

I've returned home to teach at my Alma Mater.  The vast majority of the staff is the same, so it is very interesting to be on this side of the school.  Every where I go, someone is very excited to see me and talks about things I did in school.  Hopefully that will all die down by the end of the week.

I'm very excited because I get to teach English II, Journalism, Creative Writing, Speech, and Reading.  It will be crazy with all those electives, but they only last for a nine weeks.

Anyways, I have some prep left to do tonight before bed, but I will give an update tomorrow after day 1 with students.