Vacillations of the spirit.

It's weird how my teaching mood and attitude toward my job fluctuate. Yesterday was, simply, a great day: I was on top of my game, I was an expert, I was even a little cocky and gently confrontational. I knew there were the usual dullards drifting off, but when I feel confident like this, I absolutely don't care. I hadn't had a teaching day like that in a long time.

I came in today and almost immediately I knew it was going to be a long slog. My Comp class had an essay due. Of 22 students still coming to class, only 16 turned in the essay. And almost immediately, I started boiling inside and taking it personally. Even though I know it's foolish to think I had something to do with those six students' lack of motivation, still I thought it. This week is the week after spring break, so likely, most of them put off the assignment too long and forgot it was due until too late.

This class has shaken down as follows: about two thirds of them are reasonably into it, keeping up, doing their best. The other third is simply killing time, and I don't even know why they keep attending. Two dudes have not yet turned in an out-of-class essay; their second essay was written in-class, so only one of their three essay grades is not a zero. I should bring a length of rope for them next week.

I know I should be chanting this mantra: "You can't teach motivation." But when I run into this sort of passive resistance, it has the potential to ruin my day. Probably because I care too much and/or expect a certain level of performance. As long as I have a heart, this will probably go on.

I'm not as bad now as I was just last fall, but these feelings of anger and utter bewilderment still grab me. I fundamentally can't understand why someone would choose to bury himself by not turning in work. This is a freaking two-year college--it's not like we're Yale Law.

I want to enter the mindset of someone like that for a day. Maybe that's my next poem.

Notes toward a theory of messiness.

I suggest, nay implore, my students to write off the cuff when just getting started, to write whatever comes to mind, to get messy, to not worry about the rules which normally hang them up. Yet how often do I let myself go, even partially?

Messiness is scary, a time-suck, a waste of time. Yet it's no more a waste than staring at a blank screen or piece of paper.

I thought I knew where I was going with a current poem I'm working on, and at the end of my writing yesterday, I was in a stuck place. Words piled up on themselves like the police cars in The Blues Brothers.

I'm working toward some mysterious messiness in this poem, by fits and starts. Not randomness, but messiness--emotional messiness, I suppose, and that old messiness (interesting to me, anyway) about art being partial, always failing to capture reality but (weirdly) sometimes more whole than reality. As Thomas Lux would call it, a "made thing."

I thought the poem was about watching Game Show Network but it's about something hazier and more undefinable. It's the same feeling I get when I'm on YouTube and Facebook.

If anyone ever asks what this poem is about, I'll say I don't know. Grasping, reaching for something long gone, even as it persists. Trying to step on your shadow. The idea of "subject" is moot.

The messiness is partly of juxtaposition, placing Johnny Olson next to Bert and Ernie next to an orange velour lounge chair. It's also of memory, of selectivity. All I can say for sure is that Match Game used to be on TV, and there was your announcer. All that I fancy was there is a cipher.

It's somewhat Derridean, this move which I'm interested in (and have, in hindsight, pursued for a while), away from the center. It's all a riff on "I don't know. I never knew." Hopefully it's not a concession of defeat.

We look back at the past, which isn't there and wasn't much there even when we thought we were there. We look backward, but the past is always eating itself in forward motion. That dude I was when I'm tagged in a Facebook photo ain't there anymore. Come to think of it, he's not here either.

Messiness can be truer, if more difficult. Messiness needs time to marinate. But what I have in front of me now--longer, more tangled lines, confusing moves from past to present to past--is more fun.

The curious case of Heath Ledger.

How did the Oscars shape up for you? Did it make sense that there was a dramatic upswing in viewership this year? I don't usually froth over the set design of a relatively staid ceremony, but man, they did a number on it this year. I loved the nightclub-ish feel of the stage, and Hugh Jackman made a fabulous host. His stock has skyrocketed.

I haven't seen all of the winners, but I can say that WALL-E, Man on Wire, and Slumdog earned everything they got (WALL-E, not enough). As for Ledger in The Dark Knight, yeah, he's unforgettable, but after a while the Joker (and the movie) is kinda one-note. Maybe it's my taste, but TDK just wouldn't let up. It's a skilled, above-average action movie with a great performance that's nearly buried; I was ready for it to be done at least 20 minutes before it was done.

Haven't seen Benjamin Button, The Reader, Milk, or The Wrestler. I'm the least curious about the first two. Anyone?

Spring break can't get here soon enough.

As soon as I wrote that title, I thought of everyone in this land who doesn't get a spring break, and I thought anew that I lead a pretty charmed life. It's pretty good, viewed a certain way. But the 15-16 weeks per semester that we do work are sometimes chaotic, frustrating, and insanely mechanical. And since many of us do not have the financial luxury to take the summer off, the down time between spring and summer, and between summer and fall, is much less. There's somewhat of a misperception that teachers have it easy, but believe me, we're working. (Secondary and elementary teachers, I bow down to you, because you're working harder than I am.)

That said, I am much looking forward to break. Just not having to deal with irritating students for a week is reason enough. We're not traveling anywhere for it--the wedding's around the corner and we need to scrutinize our pennies--but that's okay. I plan to get grading done, work on poems, maybe even (gasp) send out a few poems, and take care of some wedding tasks.

Let it snow, let it snow...

The above is from today at about 1 p.m. I post it as proof that we've seen snow (belatedly) this season. But what gorgeous snow--fluffy, big flakes started cascading down around 11:45 and have now tapered off to a light dusting. Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the 40s again. Beauty is fleeting.