Professor J's Place

In the late 1980's, I was living in Omaha, Nebraska. There are many things to make Omaha a lovely place to live, not the least of which is its proximity to many beautiful state parks in Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri. In the summer of 1989, not long before I left Nebraska, I went camping with about a dozen other women. We all brought food, and some of us were in charge of a specific meal. I had Saturday breakfast. I decided to give my friends a treat--chorizo and egg tacos. Take it from me, it was not easy to find chorizo in Omaha in the 80's. It took me two days of calling around to different meat markets and grocery stores before I found a little bodega on the south side. But that wasn't the end of the learning experience. My friends were baffled by my menu. Breakfast tacos? What's a breakfast taco? Who has tacos for breakfast? When I presented the first of the tacos there was some relief. Oh, it's a burrito! No, I explained, the tortilla is much ...

This morning at Upward Bound, we were doing revision workshops on the personal statements my students are writing. One of the young women began to read her essay. I stopped her. You need to speak louder and read slower. Your words are gold. She looked at me quizzically. You need to read as though what you have to say is important, precious--not "this is just some shit I wrote." And then I remembered. High School.  These kids are in high school and I'm talking like a sailor. Of course, R--, the boy who wants to become a writer, giggled and said, "I love you Miss Jensen." But I should behave. Back to the girl. Her words were gold. Her story inspiring. And she could barely read for the fear and the shame. Gah! The return of the fear! I don't know how to teach against the fear. Except to keep saying, "your words are gold, they are precious; you have something to say." Lucy Calkins is talking to children in this video . Let's...

617 N. St. Mary's Ave Yesterday, the wonderful Joy Harjo posted this on Facebook: Yesterday I hosted my fears. I allowed them to eat everything in the house, fart and burp and take over the tv control. When I finally saw them for who they were, I told them to get out. They blew into nothing, disappeared. Joy Harjo . Today, my wonderful friend Bluebird posted this on her blog: Before you start climbing down that first hill, I want you to halt, sit down and listen. I know you have jobs/responsibilities/children/health issues/money problems and I know that you aren’t sure what to do next/are feeling as though you’re shirking your “real” responsibilities/are hitting that point where self-doubt has got you by the neck and is asking you, with stinky cheese breath— “How DARE you?” And you’re tired. And you don’t know where this leads. And it was more work than you thought it would be. And you don’t know if your stuff is any good. Bluebird...

My darling friend Bluebird at Bluebird Blvd. was writing about poetry recently. It's something she often does, bless her heart. It got me thinking, as her posts are wont to do, and I wrote to her about the first poem I memorized. We decided it would be fun for both of us to write about the poems of our childhoods, so that's what we're doing today!   This is the book I grew up with. First published in 1959, The Golden Treasury of Poetry was compiled for an audience of children, but not once did it talk down to its audience. With delightful illustrations by Joan Walsh Anglund and poems that ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime, this book was my introduction to the joy and music in language. When I teach poetry, which I seldom do, I talk about how we are hard wired for poetry. What do children like to read and have read to them? Poetry! It's the heart beat, I think. The rhythm in our blood.   I, like most children was first attracted to poems that rhyme....

“She is survived by her three sons and her partner of thirty years,” the papers said. Sometimes the braver periodicals even named her, this partner . partner? Did they own a bakery together?             A curio shop? Partner is too small a word          pedestrian          business-like. I used to like the word. And what shall we call ourselves? Lover at best is dated Girlfriend dismissive, trivial We are life partners, I would whisper in her ear, family. For this lesbian poet who risked life and art and all to name her love This warrior who did not fear the wrath of publishers or critics or scholars or college administrators To hear it now, and often without a name or gender, evokes      the closet Undrape! You are not guilty to me, nor stale, nor discarded* Nor invisible. For ...

Well, what do ya know? I wasn't sure I'd ever come  back to the old place, but I kept it around to function as an archive of my old writing. And here I am wanting to write again. And wanting to write about things that aren't necessarily photography related. So here I am. Boy howdy, it's dusty in here. I'll be sweeping out some cobwebs and changing things here and there. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make you comfortable. Would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee?