He Would Have Never Gotten Tenure
The thing is to get under the students’ skin and arouse enough enthusiasm that they get under their own skin. This means allowing yourself to be yourself in class. My own best teachers were WC…
Tag: Jack Kerouac
Dear _____________________
Dear Netanyahu, Thank you. You’ve reminded me of my capacity to experience immense rage. Candidly, Mark Chmiel Dear Frenchwell, Thank you for passing on the wisdom and skill of your Israeli genius-teacher. You practice right…
Gratitude Journal/5 (“Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it”)
Several of us have been meeting weekly at a friend’s home on DeMun in a class, “Expanding the Heart: The Practice of Gratitude.” We’re keeping gratitude journals. Here’s a recent entry from mine. Thank you,…
Summer Goal: Cleaning up the Basement
To pitch 200 pounds and 30 years and umpteen teetering stacks Of nostalgia, Weltschmerz, and saudades (“Les jours s’en vont je demeure“) Into the recycle bins and trash dumpsters of Saint Louis By noon, 8.22.2013…
The Delight of Short Chapters
That is why I want to use short chapters, each with verselike heading, and very many such chapters; slowly, deeply, moodily unfolding the moody story and its long outreaching voyage into strange space. And to…
On Ferlinghetti’s Americus, I
For Dianne Lee and Lynette D’Amico When I first read Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Americus,I just before The Book of Mev was published, I was energized by discovering how much it is a mish mash, full of…
Dear Mark
Dear Mark, Here is my reflection of Dear Layla, I thought at first that I should apologize for the scatter-brained style of writing I’m sure this letter will take. Then I thought, he probably doesn’t…
Reading/Writing/Seeing
for Emily, Kelley, and Lindsay 1. In reality every reader is, while she is reading, the reader of her own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to…
Writing To Wake Up Course
Writing to Wake Up: A Course in Creativity and Community Think about it: Even with all our technologies and modes of communication, who has enough time? And yet, we need time, as community activist Grace…