School's back in session and one of the courses I'm teaching this time around is entirely virtual.

As in, all online.

It's an odd thing, never to meet your students face-to-face.

I still have a very tangible (old-fashioned?) image of what a class is. Not old-fashioned as in I-stand-up-front-and-lecture-ad-nauseum-as-my-students-use-toothpicks-to-try-to-stay-awake, but just that we're a bunch of living, breathing bodies come together to talk, listen and learn together.

So, the breathing part kind of gets lost online, y'know?

And to counter that, I try to soak up each student's sensibilities early on.
I try to discover what they like to read, what inspires them, what they aspire to.

This week there've been a broad array of poets discussed.
It tickles and inspires me, the wealth of work that's out there.
And that people find, to read and love.
Everyone from Ovid to Mary Oliver, from Whitman to Patchen.

I thought I'd share one of the latter poem's here.
It's from a site called Poets Against War, where you'll find all kinds of good stuff, including this:


Death Will Amuse Them
-- Kenneth Patchen

A little girl was given a new toy
That needed no winding and would never run down
As even the best of everything will

And all day she played with it
Following happily over the floor of heaven
Until finally it rolled to the feet of God Himself

(Read the rest here...)



I like to think I know people a bit better once I know what they're reading. You?