TGIPF - October 11, 2013

At this point in our reading of 1984, Winston has finally found another rebel, and love, in Julia. We immediately recognize the importance of finding another to be on one's team--suddenly, there is hope and opportunity and solace. This was also National Coming Out Day at school, so both in honor of political struggle and the importance of allies, we read this, which is one of my all-time favorite poems.

The Low Road
Marge Piercy

What can they do to you?
Whatever they want..

They can set you up, bust you,
they can break your fingers,
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember.
they can take away your children,
wall up your lover;
they can do anything you can’t stop them doing.

How can you stop them?
Alone you can fight, you can refuse.
You can take whatever revenge you can
But they roll right over you.
But two people fighting back to back
can cut through a mob
a snake-dancing fire
can break a cordon,
termites can bring down a mansion

Two people can keep each other sane
can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.

Three people are a delegation
a cell, a wedge.
With four you can play games
and start a collective.
With six you can rent a whole house
have pie for dinner with no seconds
and make your own music.

Thirteen makes a circle,
a hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity
and your own newsletter;
ten thousand community
and your own papers;
a hundred thousand,
a network of communities;
a million our own world.

It goes one at a time.
It starts when you care to act.
It starts when you do it again
after they say no.
It starts when you say we
and know who you mean;
and each day you mean
one more.

TGIPF - September 27, 2013

We have begun reading Orwell's 1984, and are plunged immediately into Winston's dystopian world of telescreens, surveillance, and thoughtcrime. It's a perfect place to revisit Dunbar's classic poem about the conflict between inner turmoil at injustice and seeming outer calm.

We Wear the Mask

Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
     We wear the mask. 

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
     We wear the mask!

TGIPF - Sept. 13, 2013

As conditions worsen on Animal Farm, we start to see how cycles of oppression replicate. This poem is a poignant reminder of how sometimes we can fail to see how our actions might contradict our own values. We discussed how Joudah, a Palestinian-American poet, might have felt after this encounter with his daughter.

Mimesis

Fady Joudah

My daughter

Wouldn't hurt a spider

That had nested

Between her bicycle handles

For two weeks

She waited

Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said

It will simply know

This isn't a place to call home

And you'd get to go biking

She said that's how others

Become refugees isn't it?

TGIPF - September 6, 2013

We spent a lot of time talking about the "dream" of Socialism on Animal Farm--both Old Major's literal dream, and the metaphoric dream of a utopian ideal. We are seeing this dream start to break down; this poem from Langston Hughes considers what happens when we believe strongly in a dream that we are somehow prevented from achieving. I asked students to predict what the animals might do as their hopes are gradually thwarted by the power-hungry pigs--will they... explode?

"Harlem," by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

TGIPF - August 30, 2013

We are preparing to read Animal Farm, an allegory. To prepare for this kind of literature, we spent the day looking at poems and stories that have a literal meaning, but also a symbolic or metaphoric meaning under the surface for those who know to dig for it. We first read this poem without knowing the title and discussed the literal, visual image. Then I revealed the title, and the fact that "Michiko" refers to the poet's wife, who passed away at age 36. We re-read the poem together, and I was astounded at the depth of meaning students gleaned from the metaphor of the box, representing Gilbert's grief.

Michiko Dead
Jack Gilbert

He manages like somebody carrying a box
that is too heavy, first with his arms
underneath. When their strength gives out,
he moves the hands forward, hooking them
on the corners, pulling the weight against
his chest. He moves his thumbs slightly
when the fingers begin to tire, and it makes
different muscles take over. Afterward,
he carries it on his shoulder, until the blood
drains out of the arm which is stretched up
to steady the box and the arm goes numb. But now
the man can hold underneath again, so that
he can go on without ever putting the box down.

TGIPF - August 25, 2013

This week, we have been working intensively on the Ideal School project through Humanities. Students are coming up with new ideas, and changing the way they think about their schooling experiences thus far. Over and over again, they are also discussing with one another what really matters in education--the opportunities to discover, to question, to learn--and what doesn't. This poem is a tribute to the power of wonder and paradigm shift.

Photons

By Nicole Guenther

From Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25

I said wouldn’t it be amazing

to be the last bit of light

from a collapsed star?

he said what?

I said wouldn’t it be

amazing? mused

light has to stop

coming at one point

a stream cut off.  tilted

back beside him

almost blind walking this dark

road I asked the shadowed sky

wouldn’t it be lonely

to be that last light?

he said tentatively I guess.  still

to the stars I said I wonder which ones

have already died.  I thought

which stars’ last light

like a last breath rushes

towards us now like a final

sigh of air

a final word

unheard and unrecorded

I said we might be pulling that light into our eyes

this instant.  isn’t that just

amazing?  he looked

at me while I looked

up probing the stars with dreamy

eyes he said

I had never thought

of it that way.

silently I recognized

that as the most

stunning sentence—the most

beautiful words ever uttered

TGIPF - August 16, 2013

I presented this poem as an introduction to the school year (because we are still transitioning to summer, and there is a reminder here not to lose sight of the natural beauty around us) and also as a reminder to our students, who, as sophomores, are starting to build the picture of what they will do with their "wild, precious" lives.

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Florence's Spring 2013 Innovation Day

Want to see all of the awesome things Florence students created at the first Innovation Day at Hillsdale, which was held in April of 2013? This website holds the creations! Click here to go directly to the products of that day.

Rian D made this awesome video documenting the day - check it out! Thanks Rian!