don’t wear your l.l. bean parka to the interview, you look like a b & t, (bridge & tunnel person), not from the nyc, but that was me & my american studies degree, gatsby, hemingway, salinger, bell jar, norton’s anthology, smart kid, i actually cut off the l.l. bean label, kinda punk, kinda just whatever, brandless living in the village, enter the strand, barely glanced at me, colby kid, or dartmouth, or michigan, or name your generic mainstream college, i wasn’t sarah lawrence or bard, or maybe oberlin, khakis & bucks, yuppie, you are not hired, place was a maze anyway, books stacked everywhere, chaos, dusty chaos, enter st. mark’s, east village, pretentious, pretentious, pretentious, horn-rimmed glasses, scrutinize through me, that look, you know nothing kid, this is new york city, mecca, the edge, no instant rejection, ok fine, take this piece of paper, write down five books that we must have in the store, be ready to tell me why, uh ok, short stories of flannery o’connor, in our time, go tell it on the mountain, captain’s verses, remember, i was smart, wanted to cover all bases, gender, identity, writing style, number 5? the quran, why? no idea really, lots of muslims in the world? are any of your authors still alive? um, um, well, no, thanks for applying kid, enter barnes & noble astor place, huge building, flagship store, this is november, christmas coming, standard one-page application, fill it out, we will call you, place was busy, packed, they called, i answered, my first paid job in new york.
Tag: Reading
Start of School
Dear Students,
My symbol is the Redbud tree. I chose this symbol because each leaf of the tree is a heart. The Redbud tree displays these heart-shaped leaves to all people and creatures who come near. As a teacher I have been giving my heart to students for many, many years. I love the ephemeral process of spending a year of my time with young people; reading, writing, thinking, discussing, and growing with you all. The Redbud tree eventually must say goodbye to its leaves, and in June that will also happen with us. But while the tree is nurturing its leaves, beauty is abundant. I am a believer in trees, they give us oxygen, provide shade, and literally hold the earth together with their roots. Trees are also not in a hurry; they don’t have iPads, or iPhones, or email. I can imagine trees observing us and wondering why we don’t take more time to just be and listen. I try to listen and just be, like Redbud trees. I believe that all of us have inner wisdom that comes from listening to our own voice, that quiet place where we intuitively know who we really are. It is my hope that through this English class you will nurture your inner voice through writing, thinking, discussing, and sometimes, just being.
Humpty Dumpty & Row Your Boat
humpty dumpty sat on a wall, you know the rest, but what does it mean? when you were a kid did you think humpty was an egg? a fat greedy person? a king? where was the wall? how high was it? why was humpty precariously perched up there? and why did mother goose share such things? then there is row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, strive, work hard, but not too hard, be happy, life is but a dream, what do these nursery rhymes mean? in one, life is a risky disaster, the pieces will never fit back together again, the other demonstrates utopian optimism, combined they explain human existence.
12/13: Poetry Reading in Burlingame, California
Why I Don’t Submit To Poetry Journals
i don’t get it, the poetry publishing thing, true, people definitely do read the new yorker, but does anyone really read radon journal? it’s a whole rigamarole, sending out poems with a bio, trying to figure out if the editors are interested, hoping for approval and acceptance, who cares? truly, many people know mary oliver or maya angelou, but do they know li-young lee? he’s an amazing poet, nobody knows him, nobody cares, the word obscure should follow almost anyone who names themself a poet, hi, i’m daniel, (obscure) poet, i watched a video posted in august with an inspiring poet from virginia, she read, she spoke about her life/work, it’s november, the video has like 17 views, obscure, anyway, the point, for me, is to write and self-publish, i need no approval, i think, this is an interesting piece, copy/paste/publish/done.
Reading & Billie Eilish
some question the point, why not just watch a screen, text, talk on the phone. why leave friends to immerse with already dead authors? why visit streets where horses pull carriages and fast food doesn’t exist? paper pages, turning them, what a chore. who wants to detach, disconnect from internet, iphone, streaming shows, online shopping? yet, somehow this has become me, always was me, by fireplace, under quilts, narnia, watership down, the hobbit, the color purple, quiet moments, alone, reading, reading, reading, imagination, walking with holden caulfield, questioning the phonies, the ones feeding us cookies, tracking our every electronic move, urging us to fear the next disaster- to quote billie eilish, when reading a book, no one can hurt you.
My Favorite Writers/Poets
mitch albom, jimmy santiago baca, sylvia boorstein, ray bradbury, raymond carver, pema chodron, ta-nehisi coates, pat conroy, e.e. cummings, emily dickinson, william faulkner, william finnegan, norman fischer, f. scott fitzgerald, nick flynn, natalie goldberg, richard grant, doris grumbach, thich nhat hahn, ernest hemingway, tony hoagland, zora neale hurston, jon kabat-zinn, mary karr, jane kenyon, ted kooser, stanley kunitz, anne lamont, li-young lee, philip levine, patrica lockwood, gabriel garcia marquez, peter matthiessen, frank mccourt, john mcphee, thomas merton, w.s. merwin, joseph millar, marianne moore, john muir, tim o’brien, sharon olds, mary oliver, pablo neruda, jd salinger, suzanne scanlon, shel silverstein, isaac bashevis singer, john steinbeck, wislawa szmborska, richard wilbur, c.k. williams, thomas wolfe, tobias wolff, richard wright
Writer as Quaker
so much of life is waiting, for lunch, for the uber to arrive, for the plane to land, for night to begin, for graduation, you get the drift. and then there are quakers who wait to hear from god, sit in silence, just waiting. and this is me too, some days the words just arrive and I say, hello words, and we are happy together, one word emerging after the next. other days, i just read and read and stare and stare, sort of hoping that my fingers start typing something, but glad to be waiting. because, i don’t agree with tom petty, the waiting isn’t the hardest part, the waiting is everything.
The Screen Reaper
The screen reaper has taken all the books away. The ones we used to read by the fireplace, or on the rug, or in bed, or underneath a tree. The screen reaper doesn’t care about your memories or narrative works assembled on page after page, plots, characters, all those stories shaped in your head. No, instead it offers the everything/nothing, of videos, tv shows, movies, colorful clothes draped on dancing bodies, never-ending updates, snap maps, instagram images, and tiktok temptations. The screen reaper wants it all, all of you, your eyes, brain, mind, and time.
And most of us never fight back, we open the computer, clutch the clicker, scroll with our very own fingers, authors of our demise. The screen reaper has taken all the books away, and yet we let it stay, perhaps forever, it will be this way.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid at Vanderbilt
Fun event with Jeff Kinney (Author of the Series).
Daniel W. Polk 