your kind, capable hands
PocoBrat
A Daily Self-indulgent Postcolonial/Feminist/Poetry-in-Progress/Culture Blog
Friday, January 10, 2025
renewal and respair
your kind, capable hands
Thursday, January 09, 2025
not normal
The images of devastation coming from the California fires (in Winter!) have been so hard to process. Homes, memories, histories... wiped out... just like that. I can't imagine. And yet, of course I've imagined it happening to me, to us, over here. It's not difficult. We're all just one disaster away. I'm holding space and grief for all the people, land, animals, plants, water, air, and atoms affected by what was preventable.
Today has been hard. I turned in final grades for the online Gaza course. Of the eleven students who had registered for "Literature Survey 2," just two graduated. I lost touch with the remaining nine, and hadn't been able to get a response from them in months. I will never know what happened to them. I imagine the best. I imagine the worst.
Of the two who graduated, D, promised to stay in touch "God willing, as long as we are alive, to learn from you." The conditionality was chilling. F, turned in work late once and apologized explaining that there had been internet outages and that their tent had been bulldozed. It made me embarrassed to receive that email.
None of this needs to be anyone's normal.
#RestInPowerAaronBushnell
Wednesday, January 08, 2025
scribbling women, dogs walking, dog-writing, and bitches
When I first watched Bridgerton, I was struck by this remarkable line:
LADY WHISTLEDOWN: "According to the much heralded poet Lord Byron: Of all bitches, dead or alive, a scribbling woman is the most canine."
And I meant to use it when I taught Women's Writing again (which is now). It is such a mash-up of Byron's famous misogyny, Hawthorne's hatred of "scribbling women" and Samuel Johnson's screed about women's composition--that it's like a "dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
Also, while I was looking for the precise quote, I went down some interesting theory rabbit holes. While I was aware of Animal Studies, I wasn't aware that there was a specialized field of "dog-writing" that studies the intense relationships of women writers with their dogs (Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Virginia Woolf, and so on). (While I'm no Woolf or Barrett-Browning--in our family, Scout is known as my dissertation wolf and Max is my book puppy. I don't think I could have gone on without their steadfast attention, affection, and presence.) The word "bitch" crops up with increasing frequency in the titles of these works about dog-writing: "Bitch, Bitch, Bitch: Personal Criticism, Feminist Theory, and Dog-writing" or Writing with the Bitches, etc.
It feels like I've come full circle with the Bridgerton quote.
Pic: Snow falling in the "portal," which what L and I call this corridor of trees from her house to the street.
Tuesday, January 07, 2025
heart with the old
Note: I liked writing and reading these couplets in columns, rows, and just mixing it up even diagonally. Somehow it seems to work as long as it ends up where we're born without our consent!
Pics: Last year this calendar lived on my desk at work and brought me joy all year long. Each jar-shaped month was topped by a cheery sprig of flowers and as I shuffled the cards in the bamboo holder from month to month, the composition of the bouquet changed over the year. I was sad about having to throw it out. But I didn't have to throw it out. I cut off the calendar part of the cards and now it lives on as an arrangement of flowers. Perhaps I could add a small picture of Scout to it.
Monday, January 06, 2025
ready, steady, go...
I finally got the tree back to the basement yesterday--I coordinate 90%...maybe even 95% of the Christmas around here (almost everything except my own presents) so I was increasingly agitated I had to wait on this--but it is a two-person job.
I spent most of today making sure everything would be ready for classes tomorrow. And now my classes have been published, syllabi have been uploaded to the Canvas sites, activities and diagnostics for tomorrow are ready to go, and I've just emailed everyone to welcome them to class. I've never been on a rollercoaster (too much of a scaredy-cat), but I imagine it feels like the mix of excitement, anticipation, and anxiety I'm feeling right now. I kind of love it.
Pic: Max and Huck were bored we stayed indoors most of the day. But also, I've always said Huck is half-puppy, half-kitty, and the way she drapes herself across the back of the sofa in the rumpus room proves my point.
Sunday, January 05, 2025
Bending Meaning: Haiku, P.F.Chang, and "Peelings"
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Last year, Big A had a recurrent dream where Scout was accompanying him to a bunch of classes at Kalamazoo, his old undergraduate campus. In one dream, it was a poetry class where the instructor had displayed some of their published works on the desk at the front of the class. A can't remember the titles, but the poet's name was P.F. Chang--like the Asian restaurant chain. I wonder if Big A was thinking of Victoria Chang but was also a bit hungry?
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I've been hearing this catchy Telugu film song on a number of reels and wanted to download it for my playlist. The song is about how the heroine is plagued by carnal feelings for the hero--"vochundai feelings-su" (I get these feelings). So I searched "Feelings" on I-Tunes, and nope, nothing. Turns out it's spelled "Peelings"--all the better to express the way it might be pronounced with emphasis in Telugu, I guess? Not really a word with a sultry vibe for me, however--it makes me think of dinner prep... or a skin condition.
Pic: The Red Cedar right behind L's house. From another walk this week.
Saturday, January 04, 2025
in a time before this one
Pic: I thought it was cool how the Red Cedar river had flooded and frozen into a pane over autumn leaves here. (Seen on a walk with L through the woods yesterday.)
renewal and respair
you take my hand hold my body like a prayer in your hands in your hands your kind, capable hands I arrive alive _____________________ Pic: T...
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I have the feeling that I’m going to succumb to the season and put out a list of resolutions soon. Just wanted to establish this heads up th...
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Friends and old neighbors shutting it down in honor of John Crawford. _
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Today is the birthday of the best sister in the whole world (mine:)! Happy, Happy Birthday, Chelli! [AA, my favorite aunt in the whole world...