Poetry contest continues

I've managed to work my way back into heading up the poetry contest for HSF this year. I've been working on getting some of the details into place this week, and its a lot of fun. I get to browse poetry sites and look for examples of the forms I want to use.

I'm having the younger kids do sonnets again. (Brooks and Travis, didn't both of you judge the contest when I did it senior year? Do you remember "time is like the ocean. I think I need some sun tan lotion?") The theme is "Side by Side." The phrasing is an attempt to get a broader range of poems on friendship/companionship. I'm hoping we won't be overwhelmed by the equivalent of bad pop song lyrics.

I'm actually fairly excited about the senior high contest. I'm having them do a dramatic monologue in blank verse. I'm hoping that the distance of the poem's speaker from the author inspires their creativity and also tempers the impulse to write a moral lecture. (By the way, does anyone have suggestions for good examples of dramatic monologues in blank verse with relatively non-shocking subject matter. I've already got one by Browning and Tennyson.) The theme is "Between the Lines," which is basically what a dramatic monologue does. But the themes for both age levels are the same for the poetry and photography contests since they run concurrently. And so they have to be something that can work visually as well.

I'll let you know some of the highlights and the best lows when they start coming in.

Wish you were here ...

I was thinking of everybody when Katie and I were planning our T.S. Eliot reading grouping. We're hosting a group at our place every Saturday morning for breakfast and Eliot's Christian work. We're hosting the group through Intervarsity Graduate Christian Fellowship (Katie is still the president and I'm still the secretary). I want to take us through Eliot's oft-neglected Christian works - I've been dying to read The Four Quartets collectively, as well as Eliot's "poetic dramas." All this is congruent with my modernism class and general thesis focus.

Speaking of Intervarsity, Katie and I attend a colloquium in Gainesville last Saturday about evangelism. Randy Newman, of the Falls Church was the speaker. It was excellent. Very practical and realistic ways of sharing the gospel.

We have to stay here for Spring Break - already we're in the saving money mode. Joshka is coming to visit at least. Brooks and Dana, I hope skiiing went well. Dana, don't worry - I fell on my butt multiple times skiing in Tahoe with Katie and family during Christmas. Watch out rubber legs and intermediate runs!

Aesthetics and Politics

So, this is the theme of my thesis (in the context of literary modernism). So, I'm always fascinating when literature gets tossed into political situations. Here's a very recent example of this happening to Yeats' "The Second Coming."

I've decided that my "Modernism in the American Grain" class is my favorite graduate school class so far! We've covered modernist precursors, like Whitman and Dickinson, Pound, Eliot (finally got to study The Waste Land), and now we're barrelling through W.C. Williams. Brooks, Wallace Stevens is next!

I've been working on my application for teaching high school English next year. Katie will be finishing up her coursework for at least another, then move onto to her dissertation. So, we're going to be in Tallahassee for at least another two years - much to our satisfaction.

Please come visit!!

Love to all.