Here is a link to me reading one of the poems I have published in the past. I hope you will enjoy this!
sometimes a pearl

I hope you will enjoy this article in the Washington Post, I certainly did. I also left a comment on it you might find interesting. Click on the link or use the following address: https://fb.trove.com/fbwapolabs/me/channels/trending/content/UVExk Enjoy!

Abu Dhabi- Marina Mall

cute sets safe anchor
in the harbor of shops
statement of fact
plus tard
in the afterbirth
of wisdom
he has the time
like it was always
her money

certainties like that
creep down the hall
of ancient rumors
spend sleepless nights
whispers among shadow
that were once lovers

she will become one
when the coin of
beauty slips into
another purse

this beautiful life
will hibernate
dreaming quietly in
the taj mahal
of remembrance
so beautifully bathed
in the moonlight
of regret

he stands
behind the door
of a shop
that sells time

looking through
the glass at
a world that
strolls past
endangered with
every step
a tv show
of wishes of those
who will watch
only after
the shop
has closed

when they meet
and marry
their small child
cries all the way
through the mall
for something wanted

Posting poetry on my blog

I so miss putting poetry on my blog for you to read. It all started because I publish poetry occasionally and editors have begun demanding that the poems we submit have never been posted anywhere before. I stopped posting poetry before it was published because of that. They, of course, want the only thing they can expect, which is to publish the poem for the first time. After that, the rights of the poem return to the poet and she or he can do whatever they wish with it. The publisher’s request seems reasonable and as if it was the least we can do for them. Still, it has been such a pleasure over the years to be able to share my poetry with you that I miss not being able to do that.
That is why I have decided to start putting original and first-time poetry occasionally on my blog. I am currently in Abu Dhabi and they are celebrating their 40th anniversary as a country. I was at the Marina Mall last night and had a wonderful time. The poem I wrote while I was there is what I will post now with the hope you will enjoy seeing this place through my eyes. The poem is comprised of some selected impressions and pictures of things I saw while I was there and the feelings and understanding the experience left on me. It will appear just above this post and I hope you will enjoy this experience with me.

Using Rubrics for Tesol learner autonomy

I have a practice that I often use in class. I start by teaching my students to create rubrics (assessment tools that are easily understandable) so that they know what will be expected of them on an assignment. When a teacher does this, students have already begun the process by which they are beginning to think about how they can have a better impact on both their educational activity and their grades.

If it is a progressive assignment such as drafts of an essay, for example, they get to try their hands on improving their grades by making specific decisions about what they must teach themselves to do to get a better grade. The information should be right there on the rubric so they can decide exactly what their writing should look like and do in order for them to get the kind of grade they want.

My experience with the use of rubrics is that it makes the students more comfortable with the assignment if they have been part of the process of setting the ground rules on how their work will be evaluated. They start work on the task with more assurance because they know what will be expected of them and why it has to be that way. When they finally get down to work, they actually have come to have a better understanding of the task by figuring out how to grade it. This obviously starts them on a path to more productive self-evaluation.

The next step is to give the students an opportunity to assess each other (peer evaluation). Most of us are doing these activities in the classroom already but maybe not with such a coherent plan or process. You can immediately see, however that it would be much more effective to have the students use the same criterion to evaluate each other as the activity will be more focused. I remember seeing these peer evaluation forms for assignments but they often do not use exactly the same evaluation criterion that will be applied when the teacher makes the summative assessment in the end. These peer evaluation forms are often simplified so the student, who isn’t of course the teacher, can use them.

This is a mistake, in my opinion. The students should understand the assignment starting from the way they will eventually be assessed and should know it so well that the part of the authority which they are capable to take in the educational process should be transferred from the teacher to them as early on in their studies as is possible. This is an end forward process and seems to me to be the best way to establish learner autonomy. That is why I maintain that they should start the process by creating the rubric they will be graded on at the end of their task, thereby understanding the assignment from the perspective of the teacher. This better enables them to study productively by themselves. Grounding them well in the process of rubric creation, additionally can make them better students in all areas of their future education

Frustration

PART 1

I'm just a guy who likes to teach people how to do things they want to know how to do. This doesn't translate into me being a teacher at a university like I am now doing however because somehow this process has gotten too complicated. I have to assess and judge how my students have done, in the first place. That means I have to decide what they are supposed to be learning.

As a TESOL teacher, that should be obvious shouldn't it, so what's the problem? There is, however a big problem because we test students on not only how well they speak English (that would be a placement exam) but on how well they can perform certain incremental skills in using the English language. We are trying to piece the language together from small parts and somehow that seems to function poorly on the scale of learning a language.

If we look at grammar (which is an incomplete science of the language) we can supposedly identify all the elements (in this case, many of them) about how the language works in practice. The real experience though is that people who know the grammar rules cannot necessarily speak and / or understand the language. They may get to that point eventually but they have had to learn two separate things.

Now why would I make such a stupid assertion as this? It is because I have observed that people who speak a language fluently often are not able to tell you the grammar rules they seem so competent at using. This leaves me with the conclusion that, although a scholar or writer may need to know grammar rules, ordinary people do not have to know them in spite of being fluent and perhaps even being talented in expressing themselves. Fortunately language instruction has mostly abandoned the slavish reliance on grammar instruction.

Obviously we can't use grammar as the basis for testing and certainly not for placement. So what are these small components of language that we use to measure the academic work of our students? Would they be able to be used as some kind of placement instrument? Since I know of no reputable modern placement instrument that relies on them, I must conclude that they are not a way to measure language acquisition. Therefore we must be using them purely for the purpose of generating convenient scores on which to assign the grades given at the end of each class. This sounds to be not only artificial but perhaps quite inaccurate as well.

I am left questioning whether my students will be learning English while I am being so busy at making meaningless measurements of their supposed progress?

ഹാപ്പിനെസ്സ്?

I'm the kind of person who wants to be happy as often as possible in this life. Most people would say they are of the same disposition. If you were to ask me specifically what I want from life in order to be happy, however, I would be in serious trouble. I suspect most people are like me, in that respect. For example, I know that I often confuse pleasure with happiness and that makes me wonder about what it actually is -- this thing called happiness?

Since happiness is a state rather than a circumstance, it is necessary to understand that it is something which is intensely personal. It may have something to do with objects or people or some other external factor(s). It might be a result of a process or perhaps just a side benefit, like having written a poem brings me a sense of pleasure, for example.

I do not write poetry because it is fun, however because I find the actual experience stressful. I actually don’t write poetry because I am feeling happy, either. I start to have the feeling as if something is exciting me, not necessarily in a pleasant way. I have a sensation rather akin to discomfort, which I actually realize is not going to get any better until I have done some writing. It isn’t out of a sense of relief either that I begin to experience pleasure.

As I sit there looking at the completed work (as complete as a poem ever gets) it is neither the page nor the words on it that arouses that feeling of happiness and pleasure but it is a very personal sensation of something beautiful and real existing not only where I first saw it but also somehow resident within the thing, the poem, that is trying to hold it. This is also how I experience pleasure and the sensation of being happy when I read the poems of others.

The sheer intangibility of the experience and virtually everything that is associated with it makes it such a difficult thing not only to describe but even to simply understand. So what is happiness for you? A woman once told me that happiness for her was to be lying in a tub of hot, soapy water at the end of a long hard day. Although that sounds good, I suspect most of what she was describing was about physical pleasure and emotional relief. By that I mean to say that endless days of sitting in a hot bath would be boring. The physical experience of pleasure is not enough to qualify for comprehending this most intangible of intangible sensation.

സ്ടുടെന്റ്റ്‌

The university asked me to pen a quatrain about student life for some promotional material they intend to distribute. I ruminated about the age old thought that students are too self-indulgent and spend far too much time just having fun. I don't believe there is merit in that criticism so I decided to try to answer it as honestly (and lyrically) as I could. Those of you, who are familiar with my writing, know that I seldom write things that are both metrical and rhyming in form. I thought, hey, what the heck, it's for a good cause and I enjoy that kind of stuff so I went ahead and did it. Here's what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it!



Student life quatrain

I’ve seen it all around the world,
Students sitting on benches, boy and girl.
Time wasted? I don’t think so.
Rather time gathered in which we grow.

എബൌട്ട്‌ "വെ ഓള്‍ തീര്‍ വൊഇകെസ്"

I had a wonderful experience reading We All Hear Voices by Sam Taggart. It is a warm and compelling book filled with all the gentleness of character that one would expect from a book about a loved and respected South. It is an iUniverse Publisher's Choice book and you can find it by contacting http://www.iuniverse.com or perhaps your local bookstore. The ISBN is 978-0-595-44184-6 and the cover price is $15.95 (US). I have a tendency to read a good book in a rush and this was more like an avalanche.

Having been a professional chef for almost 20 years, I must confess I was a little dubious about a medical doctor writing about cooking. If there is one thing I hate, it is to eat food that is prepared like a health recipe. However, surprisingly Sam very fully understands taste and its principle components of drama, texture (layers) and smell. But this is not a book about cooking, rather it is a book about characters and this is Sam's gift to us.

The characters in this story are often kind and posses a type of honesty and dishonesty that can only be found in small towns. The book itself becomes a character you will cherish. I can't say this any more strongly: GO OUT AND GET THIS BOOK - YOU'LL LOVE IT!

ഗര്ബഗെ ലെട്ടെര്സ്

I've been enjoying listening to Blog Talk Radio on the internet. They have some very interesting programs for poets and I suggest you check them out. You'll find them at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ or click on the title (which seems to be a bunch of garbage letters, no matter what I type). What is going on with blogger?

Season's Greetings!

the snow is bright
in the morning light
the yard echoes shouts
as kids go about
the precarious business
of falling downhill

we must take care
with the air we breathe
it's been laced with joy
since Christmas eve

Sea Trails: the Virtual Tour. Starting at The Thirteen Blacbirds. Don't Miss This!

Sea Trails is out and has full sails. Enjoy this Virtual Tour by a contemporary poet you don't want to miss! This post's title is a link to take you there - just click on it!

alone

(for Debbie)


i have a day
i thought was lost

you were in the mirror
when i looked the first time
after that you were gone

everyone knows
they don't want
to be alone
to know the tragedy

that life is
when it is
theirs alone

mine was about yours
until i got our pronoun right

January's "Got poetry" campaign

(You will find this post in the comments of the blog you go to when you click on the title of this post.)

January, I'm glad you came back to this issue with some new information and some more thoughts. I think back to Edna St. Vincent Millay and her trips across the country doing readings to huge crowds and wonder where poetry has lost all the popular appeal it once so apparently enjoyed.

On the subject of self-promotion, I definitely agree with both you and Collin on this issue. Additionally, I think we must also jump on each other's bandwagon, so to speak and relentlessly promote other people's poetry that we find important to us as well.

If you look at the difference between the indie and the large publishing house, you immediately see that the latter focuses on a small number of writers and promotes them professionally. Please don’t mistake me for thinking badly of indies, I publish all of my writing there currently and am extremely grateful for their existence. What I am trying to illustrate is that about half the reading public goes to a handful of large houses and the other half goes to a group of indies that is only slightly less numerous than the readership it serves. Among the indies, the promotion ranges from none to rather professional and they don’t repeat-print works (first timers only, please) although that is beginning to change. The net result is a very diffuse and huge group of near nameless poets for whom little or inconsistent promotion is generally applied and for whom the per capita sales of each author are rather small. When compared with the big houses, we can see how effective is their concentration on a small number of name-recognition level writers and strong promotional support for each of those names.

Still, the interest in those names doesn’t seem to approach the level of popularity of Millay, Frost, and a handful like them. It seems to me that something has happened to the perception of poets as interesting, odd, exciting people worthy of, perhaps for lack of a better word, gossiping about. I guess poetry now is about ordinary, if slightly eccentric, people living ordinary lives and legendary figures of immense popular appeal are not to be found in this group anymore. Maybe I’m just trying to take a poke at a windmill here as I really can’t seem to put my finger on why poetry has slipped out of the popular view. If it was just about professional marketing, wouldn’t the big houses already be so successful that the indie market would never have even been able to assert itself? I’m obviously missing something here and would be deeply indebted if someone would be so kind as to point it out.

I hope others will have something to say about this topic and so I’m going to post it to my blog and refer them to yours where this all started. Thanks again January for continuing your discussion of this important issue.

FIRST PUBLISHED VS. POPULAR ALREADY

The 'previously unpublished' versus the 'piece that is becoming popular' question is a big issue for me. This is something poets and publishers need to actively discuss because I believe that a wrong choice here can diminish the chance that a poem which has attracted some public interest will ever achieve the distribution and therefore exposure it would have experienced under the older print media system (which had its own flaws, let me hasten to add).

Much of the current electronic publication activity is, at best, counter-productive for the success of poetry in general (we need readers who are recreational and not just other poets). The small presses are struggling with minimal interest on the part of the consuming public and therefore are in perpetual financial difficulties. Many of them react to this situation so conservatively and narrowly that, believing they are serving their own best interests, they further limit the possible interest of the larger consuming public that poets and publishers used to enjoy in the past.

People (poets and non-poets) like to have their current favorite works available to read multiple times. Furthermore, they like the reassurance that others are just as excited about those works as they are. The more places in which their favorite poems show up, the more they feel as if their personal preference is justified. They like the critical interest generated by popular poems because they better learn how to understand them by reading what scholars are saying about their favorites. These issues are key ones to those who do not already possess educated specific background in poetry and poetry writing. The perilous inaccessibility of some modern poetry which demands deep technical understanding and considerable intellectual aesthetic attention is an understandable putt-off to people who already have no clue as to why MFA poets write the way they do.

I can’t think of a process more alien to this than our current small press activity. Are the current trends for publication in them actually endangering the growth of a real group of public readership (which would really be in the best interest of them specifically and modern poetry in general)?

On writing for NaPoMo

I'm not much of a 'write for contests' kind of guy, preferring to commit to art rather than things which would produce some kind of personal recognition but I have participated, for the first time, in National Poetry Month because it is, in part, about something in which I believe. For any of you who are unfamiliar with it, this is an American event created to specifically promote poetry and increase public awareness of poetry and poets, in general. What is asked of us during the month of April is to write a poem each day of the month. I begin to be a little uncertain here, wondering if some quantitative value is going to do anything worthwhile for poetry but, what the heck; it’s for a good cause so I can tolerate a portion of sloppy logic to go with the good intentions.

I’m used to external discipline as it is applied to learning. I’m a teacher and I try to do this for my students all the time as I also help them with the process of learning how to do that for and by themselves (called learner autonomy). In my life as a poet, I frequently find I need to learn more about my art. How does W. C. Williams bring that larger context along with that object, The Red Wheelbarrow, with such a simple, short poem? How does Basho find the soul of something physical and familiar to us? How does a sonnet or sestina work? I must learn from these external things so I can do what the art of poetry demands of me.

When I seek to gain knowledge from external sources I am practicing learner autonomy in my own life. If a poet acquaintance like Robert Lee Brewer takes upon himself to post a daily prompt for each day of National Poetry Month for use by hundreds of poets on the internet, this is another form of external discipline because now I must write not only daily (which I already do) but on a specific theme. Sometimes a thousand or more poets respond and post their themed results on an internet location where they can be collected and judged. I am the kind of poet that likes to revise and this regime gives no time for that activity to take place. In essence, we are being asked to produce the best work we can with rather short notice and with very little opportunity to revise before submission. This is so far away from the writing regime I have been using for years but I find I am learning some unplanned lessons in areas I usually don’t even think about by participating in this experience.

We are nearly half way through and it is not too late to pick up your pen and join in the fun. If, like me, you would never consider doing such a silly (although well motivated) thing like this, I invite you to give it a try. After all, being a holy person in the isolation of living on a high mountain is one thing but coming down and trying to be pure in the city with its myriad temptations is a whole ‘nother. Join the crowd!

Another trip to Luciole Press

The Spring/Summer Issue is out! This is a big issue just packed with all sorts great art by some wonderfully talented people. It is an honor to be included in their company. Enjoy this!

(The previous post about the fall'\/Winter Issue will take you there also. I don't know if they have archives or not but will try to find out)

Fragment

what’s old is the ancient quest of restless dreams
chugging through the night
what’s new is that in the gathering pre-dawn
birds sing eagerly
bells urging me to find that empty pew in
the church of my heart

Undeclared Love

He smells her hair,
He holds his place.
It's so unfair,
This lovely face.

There's no broken heart
For him to mend.
This is the part
That doesn't end.

A languid limb
Of hers reclines;
For beauty’s hymn
Sorrow defines.

Of all the ways pain can name,
This is the one he would not claim.


The first two stanzas of this poem were written as a group effort at English club at K.I.M.E.P. recently and are the combined efforts of several people, including Nurmerey Shakhanova and Akerke Almanova. The last stanza and the couplet I wrote subsequently and the poem you have just read is the result. I want to say thank you to those who participated in the creation of this sonnet.

Go read Luciole Press

You will find two of my poems in the winter issue. Just click on the title and it will take you to them. There is some wonderful poetry in this issue so please take some time to enjoy a few of the many fine works while you are there.

Go read the Blue Fifth Review!

Blue Fifth Review has graciously published one of my recent poems. It is called dream and you can find it in the first section of their Fall 2008 edition. There is so much wonderful poetry in that issue you couldn't go wrong even if you got lost reading and it took you a long time to find my poem. Enjoy!

Journey

I do not know how it calls

but I bounce off what I'm doing

and float on the words

the world is changed and gone away

the time that ticks so viciously

means exactly the next moment

and all those things that mean

there is nothing else and yet

gratefully it gathers in a grey ball

of thread and does not unravel

hangs there more motionless

than any illusion and the word

is the only motion I know

moving but carrying no twigs or branches

no leaves no gum wrappers

and there are no markers

that time could count



it was his special journey

everything had become indistinct

the war was it won or lost

his home his children

the house the cities with

order and direction roads to travel

these were thoughts that

tumbled endlessly

a washing machine in orbit

weightless cleaning nothing

everything tumbling

meaninglessly forever



maybe this is Circe

for whom he had searched unknowingly

but there were so many of them

each with their own

special enchantments

the magic of an oriental bazaar

the song of many temptresses

locked on land

trapped in offering trivial dangers

wasted songs tempting the

shipwrecked already of departed souls

pirates confused by bureaucracy

seeking plunder from empty ships

this and nights in the heat

and cold made dreamlike

with passion and slow lilting music

that stretches endlessly

without ever growing thin and dangerous



there is so much of it

and it is as if he was happy

thinking nothing of deep thoughts

dark swift dangerous

not watching running aground

on bars which you can't miss

with neon lights like beacons

head for the lighthouse

to save you with

night on the rocks

actually looking for it to end

but finding you must do it

over and over



this is the long of it

when time has gone away

and Odysseus lounges

on the endless sand

of an oceanless beach

drinking fragrant tea in bowls

and wondering

if he will ever

stop eternity grown to sameness


(First published in Autumn Leaves, volume 12(15), August 1, 2008

This poem is copyright © 2008, Russell Ragsdale, all rights reserved.

Tagged by Pris Campbell

Okay, I was tagged by Pris Campbell who was tagged by Sam Rasnake in his second meme (go to his blog to read his):

Here is mine:

As an adult, the following selections have influenced or impacted me the most...

[These works may or may not be your favorites, and you may have first encountered them when you were much younger.]


the book:
Savage Beauty, Nancy Milford, Ransom House


the film / network series:
Matrix, 1999, Directed by the Wachowski Brothers

the music / spoken word recording:
The Magic Flute, by Mozart (in German)

What are your choices?

I tag Ozy, S. L. Corsua, Katy and anyone else who would like to put theirs up.

Four Haiku:

(for Alan Summers)

Night (Senyru/Senyru):

1
end of a long, hard day
breath held in
suddenly let out

2
journal of a dream
hand writing on pillow
cat wants to play

Morning (Senyru/Haiku):

3
toast soaks up butter
egg in skillet
morning sunrise

4
prayer towers subdue
the rusty hinge
of cloudless dawn

origin

I have found a church in your smile
a faith in your eyes
I’m lost in every other context
hard vacuous thought
wandering confused in the night
this is not that
this is vigorous
uncountable
no choice

loss is inexplicable
je suis fou
that makes sense

I am at last matrixed
to everything about you