Poetry and Restraint: Teaching as T’Shuvah

November 28, 2012 By 4 Comments

Restraint. A poet’s restraint. A teacher’s.

The penultimate moment of Elizabeth Bishop’s “Filling Station”:

… Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
esso—so—so—so
to high-strung automobiles.

As I do with most poems assigned for class, I began our exploration of “Filling Station” by reading the poem aloud. But after that, instead of asking a question or two or however many it takes to get a discussion going, I took my seat, turned the poem over to the students, and told them that I would not guide or interfere with the discussion, at least not until late in the hour.

Restraint. That’s what I had to practice that day. Even when it meant letting a promising comment go undeveloped, maybe even undetected.

Practicing restraint, I listened, on the first of what turned out to be two full periods devoted to “Filling Station,” to their animated discussion. [Read more...]

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To Live by the Light of Fiction

October 30, 2012 By 1 Comment

“In the end, a story is never going to make a damn bit of difference to the dead.” —The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Michael Chabon

When I’m gone, son, tell me the story of the day you collided with the opponent’s keeper, his knee to your temple, and collapsed, face down, on the pitch until the EMS crew rolled you off the field on a gurney.

Tell me the story of how, during the month you waited to play again, you tried to rally the flagging team and inspire them to turn around their season.

Tell me the story of the coach who failed to recognize your talents and dedication—as player and leader—so I can rally to your defense—if the dead can come to the defense of a good son. [Read more...]

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An Original, Revised Torah

October 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing, incised upon the tablets. —Exodus 32:16

And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God, with the exact words that the Lord had addressed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the Assembly. —Deuteronomy 9:10

Thereupon the Lord said to me, “Carve out two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain; and make an ark of wood. I will inscribe on the tablets the commandments that were on the first tablets that you smashed, and you shall deposit them in the ark.” —Deuteronomy 10:1 – 2

God hewed the first set of tablets and wrote directly on them. Moses carved the second set, and then God, with God’s finger, inscribed the exact words that God said “on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the Assembly.”

A replacement, a duplicate, though not exactly, from original to replica, from presence, flashing and fleeting, to preservation. From “from” to “to” and the distance between.

The rabbis know distance well, an obstacle blocking our way back (to Sinai, to revelation). They also know the reaction to such an obstacle: intense longing to get back to where we once belonged, even though we know we can’t. [Read more...]

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Torah Revealed and Withheld: Part Two

September 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

(Continued from yesterday.)

I’m not ready to leap from my son to your son, God.

But am I ready to relax my grip on any other parts of the self that define me?

You have not withheld, have not withheld, withheld . . .

You say Greater Israel, Judea, Samaria, and as you speak, even while you are still speaking, before your last sentence is finished, I’m composing, revising, rehearsing my response to you while my chest tightens, my muscles constrict, my breath speeds up. Am I still listening?

Do I have the strength if not courage, courage if not wisdom to wait, wait for my scripted response (demographics, human rights, competing narratives), playing internally, to run all the way to its emphatic conclusion—marked by an irrefutable exclamation point!—before I respond to you? [Read more...]

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Torah Revealed and Withheld: Part One

September 17, 2012 By 1 Comment

Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son. Genesis 22:12

Because you have done this and have not withheld your son. Genesis 22:16

I wouldn’t have done it. Wouldn’t do it. It’s not in my nature.

What’s not? Generosity.

There it is. I said it. If you want to stop reading now, fine. Why should I expect you to read further, given that reading is an act of generosity giving attention to someone else’s sentences. If I, the writer, am not generous, how can I expect you to be? [Read more...]

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I am Barack Obama/Mitt Romney/Adonai and I Approve This Message

August 22, 2012 By 3 Comments

Listen to me: America doesn’t need an outsourcing pioneer in the oval office.

Listen to me: When a president doesn’t tell the truth, how can we trust him to lead?

Listen to me: _____’s Own 2002 Testimony Undermines Bain Departure Claim.

Listen to me: The article is not accurate.

Charges, denials, countercharges. Reporting, spinning. Disclosing, withholding.

It’s noisy out there. (Or should I say it’s noisy in here, a house with three televisions, two radios, three computers, two daily newspapers, a half dozen periodicals, yes, noisy in here, even here, enclosed in parentheses?) [Read more...]

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Finding Poetry and Meaning in Internet Clicks

August 2, 2012 By 2 Comments

Three minutes, maybe four. Six minutes, maybe seven. A little bit of time.

This morning open Google chrome to my homepage the University of North Carolina Asheville. Once it’s loaded, a quick glance at upcoming events. A post Civil War lecture.

First thought: Living in the South, I really should know more about the Civil War and its aftermath. Click.

The link takes me to the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement’s Appalachian Studies Authors Series. I’ve already received an e-mail message and read a story in the Asheville Citizen Times about this series. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Faith, Richard Chess, Writing 2 Comments

A Psalm for Surgery

July 10, 2012 By 3 Comments

Seamless, my passage through a day and from day to day: from dawn to dusk, from sleep to waking. Though sleep may be interrupted, the story of life, this life, my life continues uninterrupted.

From sand glazed by sun to the wet edge of sand (“in nature there are few sharp lines” writes A.R. Ammons in “Corsons Inlet”) where the thinnest sheet of water spreads over the feet, to full immersion in the Atlantic Ocean and back to the beach towel, the chair, the novel; from house to yard, empty wallet to loaded, stained teeth to polished, one motion.

Yes, time, my time, is calendared, gridded: slots for waking and sleeping, exercising and eating, teaching, grading, meeting, reading, watching, sitting (to meditate and pray, to receive and send), walking (down the hall, down the stairs, across the road, around the circle led by a dog), and lying down.

I move seamlessly from one grid to another: the grid of the academic year, the grid of the Jewish calendar, the grid of the American calendar, the grid of broadcast dayparting, the grid of medical care. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Richard Chess 3 Comments
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