Praeterita

Back in January, when I was teaching the American Authors in Paris creative writing class, one of the main assignments for the students was to do a presentation on one such author in a site in Paris related to that writer. So, for example, we had presentations on Fitzgerald in front of the first hotel he stayed in, on the Rue de Rivoli; Gertrude Stein in front of the Rue de Fleurus apartment; and one on Ezra Pound, not too far from Stein's place. A very talented student called Jesse read aloud from the Cantos while standing in front of the building where Pound spent many months. Here is a photo I took, as we all huddled close to him on the sidewalk to allow the sour-faced locals to squeeze past us: It made me realise that I hadn't read any Ezra Pound in many years, even though I always loved his work when I was a student. So over the weekend I bought this: And I am really enjoying getting back into the music of his poetry again, particularly the Cantos, which, even if...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the two blogging classes that I taught at the Interlochen College of Creative Arts in northern Michigan. More news has reached me from one of the people who took the class, Carol Ivkovich. She came to the class having already started one blog, but in the course of the sessions, she experimented with writing about more difficult subject matter, relating to her aging parents, one of whom has "the three As: alchololism, addiction, and Alzheimer's." The difficulty of engaging in this sort of writing, not just for the writer but for the writer's other relatives, kicked off a serious discussion about self-censorship and the limits of revelations. In the end, Carol took the brave step of starting that blog. Oh, and one important thing: she was one of the best writers in the class, too. Here is a link to Carol's blog, Finding Mrs. Poppins .