Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

poetry

Constellations

Submitted by allisonletts on Tue, 04/10/2012 - 11:08am

poetry

When we read, the Learning
curve is really Important; after all,
Access works both ways, the text as
A veil
Protection
Division
Desire
Control...
We touch and manipulate, we
Turn a page of the
Stars of a constellation.
To be of use, here, we are
Building and
Learning. Leaning on
Generational differences, our own Urban dictionaries.
There are
endless opportunities, but
the supplies are not
endless. Access to resources,
Different resources for different tasks,
Cultural capital, these
are the problems we face.
It’s the Danger of a single story:
reading and co-creating and becoming

By Emily, Julia, Manya, and Allison

allisonletts's blog

the grammar of suffering war

Submitted by alesnick on Sat, 06/12/2010 - 1:58pm

To me, Alexandra Teague's "Adjectives of Order" (below) speaks powerfully to the problem with formal education when forms are fundamentally unresponsive to human experiences, especially those we undergo rather than originate. The poem shows a "student's" schooling in English as an education in the ruthless impersonality of the way grammar is conceived. It also shows how the situation of formal education erects bizarre barriers between "student" and "teacher" -- in quotes because the student is, among other things, also a veteran and former prisoner of war, a speaker of a language or languages other than English, and a person working to make sense of his experience through language; the teacher we don't learn much about, but she is clearly also a learner in this case.

For Emily Dickinson

Submitted by rfindlay on Mon, 12/08/2008 - 8:28am

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE

poem: A Young Minotaur Learning to Rhyme

Submitted by One Student on Thu, 07/03/2008 - 6:02pm

poetry

"You can always learn to rhyme well later but, unless you have that compulsive pleasure in consonant sound, to the point of nonsense, you'll never be a poet."

-Gwyneth Lewis, poet, person who has experienced depression, and author of Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book About Depression.

a poetic prelude

Submitted by One Student on Mon, 04/28/2008 - 6:16pm

poetry

Some of my poetry is not intended to have any meaning whatsoever - it's an exercise in breaking down language, because language doesn't say everything I want to say anyway (labyrinthlanguage). It's fun. It keeps my fidgety mind occupied during class, while I listen with half an ear. It's stringing together words that sound ... right. Here are two poems that I thought were meaningless. The first developed meaning as I wrote. The second ... I think it has meaning, though it's damn oblique. But I think it's about continuing, and continuing, and continuing to makea certain kind of effort ...

Response to "A Gender-queer Generation" by Alexandra Funk, or, let me forget myself

Submitted by One Student on Wed, 04/16/2008 - 8:48pm

I did note that Alex wrote a piece on genderqueer students at single-sex colleges; and I felt I ought to say something, since I identify as genderqueer, for lack of a better word or concept. But the thing is, it's intensely private. And the thing is, the problem of my gender identity is perhaps the only problem which I can't solve by writing and talking about it. A friend of mine (one of those LJ friends I've never met) commented thus on one of my entries in early February:

Poetry

Submitted by One Student on Mon, 02/18/2008 - 7:06pm

poetry

I'm posting a bunch of what I'm going to call associative-sound poems here, now. I might refer to them later in order to make a point about Moby Dick and Picasso and Gertrude Stein and my hypertext collage (linked to in a previous entry), but I don't have time now. Such a tease, I know ; )