clarity, which can be the deepest mystery

maybe i should turn this space into a teaching blog? a space to reflect on teaching & share some favorite exercises, prompts, conversations?

i love Emilia Phillips’s, with the beautiful name: EARS ROARING WITH MANY THINGS: A CREATIVE WRITING TEACHING BLOG.

though i already talk a lot about teaching on twitter. for example:

the best thing i can do as a teacher is to take a student's work seriously. helping them read their own work more seriously, ask deeper q's. what can this poem really say? sing? dream? do? undo? maybe it needs more pleasure. mystery. clarity, which can be the deepest mystery.

often graduate students already know how to make a beautiful line, beautiful image, beautiful poem. but none of that means a poem is alive. so i have to put some pressure on all that beauty. where is the surprise? the leap? the duende? the wild thing caught in the poem's hair?