{"id":1273,"date":"2015-03-23T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T04:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1273"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:49:33","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:49:33","slug":"march-23-al-aolynas-nevermind-i-want-to-cry-out-it-doesnt-matter-about-fragments-finding-them-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2015\/03\/23\/march-23-al-aolynas-nevermind-i-want-to-cry-out-it-doesnt-matter-about-fragments-finding-them-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"March 23 – Al Zolynas “‘Nevermind,’ I want to cry out. ‘It doesn’t matter about fragments. Finding them or not'”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday March 23 \u00a0\u2014 \u00a0\u201c . . .\u00a0<\/strong>a sudden,\u00a0sweet, almost painful love for my students.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Monday mornings, I often begin looking for a post in\u00a0\u201cA Year of Being Here\u201d which hits my inbox on Saturdays with a handful of poems. \u00a0Most of the poets I have not met before. \u00a0Some read to my ears like the poet missed something. \u00a0I re-read and, sadly, come to the same conclusion. \u00a0But not very often. \u00a0Some stranger opens my ears to the day and to the work week. \u00a0A few minutes ago, that happened again.<\/p>\n

Who, I wonder, is Al Zolynas? \u00a0His poem,\u00a0\u201cLove in the Classroom\u201d knocks me flat. \u00a0And invites me into a classroom in the middle of an assignment, into the fear of routine dulling his senses and blunting his bravery. \u00a0But then, the whole poem opens my ears; the courage of exploring the ordinary fears that are part of a teacher\u2019s life. \u00a0Courage and fear will be at work all over this Monday campus at Six Mile and Livernois, on Jefferson at the Law School, on M L King Blvd at the Dental School.<\/p>\n

A university is not only faculty,\u00a0all around the place people begin to suck it up and focus on the tasks that will shape the day, committed to ordinary courage and ordinary fear. \u00a0But this Monday Al Zolynas pays tribute to teachers as they teach, and to their students. \u00a0Beauty all around while we wait for spring to open the daffodils.<\/p>\n

Have a blest day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

p.s.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sr. Bette Moslander, C.S.J, a giant of a woman, died yesterday in her Kansas home.\u00a0 I think she was in her 90s.\u00a0 I know, from my own experience and that of many others that her wisdom ran deep, its bite and edge softened by her kindness and her amazing wit.\u00a0 A loss for many Sisters of St Joseph and an uncounted number of other women and men.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post \u00a0\u201cLove in the Classroom”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses.<\/p>\n

Al Zolynas: “Love in the Classroom”<\/a><\/h2>\n

Posted by Phyllis Cole-Dai on Mar 18, 2015 12:00 am<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Art\"<\/a>
\n\u2014for my students<\/p>\n

Afternoon. Across the garden, in Green Hall,
\nsomeone begins playing the old piano\u2014
\na spontaneous piece, amateurish and alive,
\nfull of a simple, joyful melody.
\nThe music floats among us in the classroom.<\/p>\n

I stand in front of my students
\ntelling them about sentence fragments.
\nI ask them to find the ten fragments
\nin the twenty-one-sentence paragraph on page forty-five.
\nThey’ve come from all parts
\nof the world\u2014Iran, Micronesia, Africa,
\nJapan, China, even Los Angeles\u2014and they’re still
\neager to please me. It’s less than half
\nway through the quarter.<\/p>\n

They bend over their books and begin.
\nHamid’s lips move as he follows
\nthe tortuous labyrinth of English syntax.
\nYoshie sits erect, perfect in her pale make-up,
\nlegs crossed, quick pulse minutely jerking her right foot. Tony,
\nfrom an island in the South Pacific, sprawls
\nlimp and relaxed in his desk.<\/p>\n

The melody floats around and through us
\nin the room, broken here and there, fragmented,
\nre-started. It feels Mideastern, but
\nit could be jazz, or the blues\u2014it could be
\nanything from anywhere.
\nI sit down on my desk to wait,
\nand it hits me from nowhere\u2014a sudden,
\nsweet, almost painful love for my students.<\/p>\n

“Nevermind,” I want to cry out.
\n“It doesn’t matter about fragments.
\nFinding them or not. Everything’s
\na fragment and everything’s not a fragment.
\nListen to the music, how fragmented,
\nhow whole, how we can’t separate the music
\nfrom the sun falling on its knees on all the greenness,
\nfrom this moment, how this moment
\ncontains all the fragments of yesterday
\nand everything we’ll ever know of tomorrow!”<\/p>\n

Instead, I keep a coward’s silence.
\nThe music stops abruptly;
\nthey finish their work,
\nand we go through the right answers,
\nwhich is to say
\nwe separate the fragments from the whole.<\/p>\n

\"Al-Zolynas\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Love in the Classroom” by Al Zolynas. Text as published in\u00a0Under Ideal Conditions: Poems\u00a0<\/em>(Laterthanever Press, 1994; no bookseller link available).\u00a0<\/em>\u00a9 Al Zolynas.\u00a0Reprinted by permission of the poet.<\/p>\n

Art credit:<\/em>\u00a0“Open Window,” acrylic on canvas, abstract\u00a0painting<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Filomena De Andrade Booth.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday March 23 \u00a0\u2014 \u00a0\u201c . . .\u00a0a sudden,\u00a0sweet, almost painful love for my students.” On Monday mornings, I often begin looking for a post in\u00a0\u201cA Year of Being Here\u201d which hits my inbox on Saturdays with a handful of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1273"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1278,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions\/1278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}