Teachers Can Never Tell...

Today I learned that a young man I taught about ten years ago is the current reigning heart throb on a Philippine television show titled "My Bonondo Girl"  This exciting news tidbit came to my attention when a news crew from a local Bay Area Filipino television station showed up to film at Ben Franklin Intermediate, our little Daly City, California middle school.


When I was his 7th grade teacher, I knew him as Alex Lim.   My memory could be faulty (after all, I've taught 10 more years since Alex was in my class!) but I think of him as being rather artistic.  He was a sweet boy with a good sense of humor. Nowadays he goes by the name of Xian Lim, and he is quite the good looking young man!  Check out the photos on his website to see how dreamy he is now.  No wonder he's a heart throb.

All this just goes to show that teachers can never tell where their students will end up.  We spend our days together for nine months in a very intense relationship which ends abruptly when they fly away in June. Sometimes my students stay in touch with me, but more often than not, I never hear from them again.  What a pleasure to find about a former student who has made a success of his life.  Of course, I'd like to take some credit for that success; after all, teaching him English must have had some effect on his ability to act!

Writing Odes with Eighth Graders

You’ve all heard it over and over:  overcrowded classrooms, decaying buildings, reduced budgets, furlough days without pay and constant teacher-bashing by political pundits and the media.  These issues weigh heavy on the shoulders of all teachers -- even a 21-year veteran like myself.  More and more these days, I have to remind myself why I chose this profession and have stayed in the classroom – with 7^th and 8^th graders no less – all these years. 

And then, just when I start dreaming of early retirement, the sun shines through the dirty, cracked windows of my classroom, and I forget all the bureaucratic and political hoo-ha to fall in love with teaching all over again. That’s what happened when I spent the day writing odes à la Pablo Neruda with my 8th graders.  

I first fell in love with odes as an English major in college when I read Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” and “Ode to a Grecian Urn” with it’s famous lines “beauty is truth, truth beauty,' – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”  But it wasn’t until many years later that I  thought of odes as a genre for teaching poetry in middle school – they seemed too serious and formal to attract most young people. 

That was until I read Pablo Neruda’s Odes to Common Things.  Neruda’s odes to everyday items such as tomatoes or socks or salt were just the thing to interest adolescents in writing poetry.  The ode’s extravagant praise for something important in their lives appeals to the emotional exuberance of 12 and 13 year olds.  They can swoon over their first love, kiss up to their mothers or proclaim their undying devotion to their iPods or basketball.  They love it, and so do I.   They play with language in a way that makes their voices come alive on the page, and when they read their poems during our poetry reading, every one of them is a true poet.

I wish I could print some of those poems here but there are privacy issues with student work.  However I can provide you with the next best thing:  a link to the odes posted on my classroom website – http://www.msrizzo.org

You can check them out there if you want.

And of course, since I try to practice what I preach, here is my own ode "eighth grade style":

Ode to My Backpack

You backpack,
so worthy
of my praise.
Zippered one,
orange as the sun,
snug and secure
on my back.
I need you!

You are always
with me -
constant companion,
strong, expansive,
heavy or light,
your pockets
ready for my
every need.

Compared to you
suitcases are like
rocks in my hands.
Purses are as useless
as tiny boxes.
Only you, backpack
hold my life.

When we travel together
you keep me safe,
hold my memories:
evil eye from Turkey,
stones from Zanzibar,
shells from ocean waves.

I want to slip
your straps over
my shoulders,
slide into your
warm embrace.
You proclaim,
"We're on our way!"

For you I will
brush the crumbs
from your pockets,
shake the sand
from your seams.
Oh backpack,
lead me
again and again
through the world.

The Joys of Cross-Posting!

I decided to take the advice of  Tania, who taught a blogging class through Story Circle Network and created my first cross-post on BlogHer.  The post appeared today and so far it has gotten 479 reads and several comments and "likes" on Facebook.  How exciting to have my writing reach a wider audience.

Our Missing Sister Writers

My first - and for many years only visit - to Westminster Abbey was in 1987.  I was a young and starry eyed English major who had studied all the classic writers of English and American literature.  I was also a sometime writer who considered myself more of a scribbler than anything else.  Perhaps I was just afraid to hope for more than that -- after all, none of my teachers or professors had ever encouraged me to take my writing seriously.  So when I walked through Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey, I was awed by the graves and memorials of some of the most celebrated writers of England:  Shakespeare of course, but also Byron, Robert Browning, Chaucer and many others. 

I had such fond memories of that first visit that when after 25 years I returned to London a few weeks ago, I was excited to revisit Poet's Corner once more.  I could not have been more surprised by my reaction -- anger and disappointment.  Everywhere I looked, I saw names of male writers.  Where were the women? Of course, there were the paltry few:  Elizabeth Barrett Browning's name stuck like an afterthought at the bottom of the memorial to her husband and an admittedly good-sized memorial to Mary Anne Evans who we all know as George Eliot.  Also, after much searching, I found a tiny plaque with Jane Austen's name almost completely overshadowed by the huge monuments to men that surrounded her.

Why had I not noticed this before?

I was quite the feminist firebrand in my youth, but why hadn't I felt anger over this meager recognition for women writers? Was it my own lack of confidence that made me ignore the disregard for women?  And if that is the case, what had changed to make me notice this so much on my recent visit? To my mind it's a good sign that in my middle years I still have the energy to feel resentment at this inequality. I also think that since I have a better sense of myself as a writer, I no longer question the right of any women to sit at the table of English literature, just as I no longer question my own right to call myself a writer.  Score one point for my development as a person and writer.  Mourn the fact that such a problem still exists in our day and age.

I was not allowed to take photographs among the graves of Westminster Abbey so all I have are my notes about my visit.  How appropriate that I wrote those notes in a notebook with a reproduction of the cover of Virginia Wolfe's famous essay, "A Room of One's Own."  I bought that notebook after having attended the summer writer's retreat sponsored by A Room of Her Own Foundation -- an incredible organization dedicated to nurturing women writers.  Virginia's essay describes what life would have been like for Shakespeare's sister if she had wanted to write.  Instead of flourishing like her brother, she  would have had to fight for every ounce of artistic expression she could manage.  Wolfe passionately argues for the right of all women to have a "room", a place of their own where they can create the lives they want instead of those dictated to them by a society that sees them as less worthy than men.

Near my desk I also still keep my copy of Wolfe's book from my college days with its rather "groovy" cover.  I've kept it all these years as a talisman against the forces that would make me doubt my abilities or those of any other women.  While we all know things have improved for women in the 21st century, Poet's Corner shows that we still have a long way to go before women are considered equals in the world of literature - and in the world at large.

Today was Awards Day!

Today I received my awards from the Bay Area Poets Coalition contest as well had the opportunity to read my poems to a wonderful audience.  There was even a small cash prize! 






Since this is the first time I've ever won a writing contest - even though I've entered many - today I'll bask in the glory.  Tomorrow it's back to the writing desk.

One Woman's Day

The inaugural post for my blog has just been re-posted at One Woman's Day, a blog hosted by The Story Circle Network, an online resource for writer-women.  You can read the entire post by clicking on the link above.

January 27 – The Teacher/Poet or Poet/Teacher?

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Linda Hoye | Leave a comment

by Lisa Rizzo

Today a funny thing happened in my middle school classroom. The teacher stopped “teaching” and became a writer being interviewed by her students. We were watching a video about an author of one of the stories in their textbook. When it was over, someone asked me what my writing routine was. I’ve told my students that I write poetry and have always written poems with them for classwork. But I’ve never really just talked to them about who I am as a writer, what I do and why I do it.

Dancing With The Madonna

One of my favorite paintings in the world is in one of my favorite places in the world:  the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  The painting in question is in the room with Botticelli’s famous “Primavera” and “The Birth of Venus”.  Those two paintings are so popular that the room is always packed with people - even those who have no deep interest in art.  I remember my second visit to the Uffizi – I was traveling alone so I had been spending as much time as possible in museums and churches, soaking up art to my heart’s content. There was no one to beg me to leave, but also no one to share my experiences with.  Every time I turned from a piece of art, excited to see it again, my only companion was my notebook - that trusty shield that protects all solitary travelers.  However, as long as I had the paintings, I could be content. But on this day I couldn’t get near enough to see because of a tour group that flocked together in front of the naked Venus clothed only in her blonde hair.  They made me more than a bit cranky so I sat on a bench to wait them out. This is usually an easy thing to do since most people look at art for so short a time. I sat there feeling - I confess this freely - smug and superior to these "check it off my list" type of tourists.

            On this day, that wait was fortuitous because I had to make do with gazing at the other Botticelli paintings in the room – no less beautiful – but much less famous.  Perhaps because they are subtler, they take longer contemplation.  One in particular caught my eye. Titled “Madonna of the Pomegranate,” what drew my attention was the expression on the Madonna’s face.  Usually Mary is depicted with a sweet, pensive look or even a bit of sadness – as if she were well aware of the end of her story.  But this Mary, instead of gazing joyfully or lovingly at the heavy baby clasped in her arms, looked downright bored.  And why was she holding a pomegranate?  It made me remember my childhood obsession with Greek and Roman myths, of Persephone and her ill-fated bite of the pomegranate that kept her half the year in Hades. It made me curious enough to find out that in Christian iconography the pomegranate is a symbol of resurrection and eternal life (Symbols in Christian Art & Architecture http://www.planetgast.net/symbols/).  In light of that, her expression is even more intriguing. Forgetting my own loneliness, I sat there a long time. Just what was Mary thinking?   

Madonna of the Pomegranate

- A painting by Sandro Botticelli in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

I have waited here for centuries,

clasping this heavy infant in my lap,

beset by the whispers of angels –

always words of

praise and adoration,

alleluia and Ave Maria.

Glory becomes tedious.

Sometimes I think the child

teases me holding

a pomegranate in his hand,

its ripe skin split to reveal its seeds –

glistening rosary beads

which tempt me

to seize something for myself.

Visitors no longer notice me,

never puzzle the meaning

of the strange fruit

my son carries.

They would much rather exult

in the riot of Spring,

the brilliance of Venus.

I long to shake off these stiff robes,

clothe myself in waves,

strew my hair with roses and dianthus.

I’d like to sink my teeth deep

into the pomegranate,

roll the seeds across my tongue,

be-rouge my lips with juice.

To relieve my monotony,

I’d relish anything,

even welcome

the revelation of fear.

How lucky was Persephone!

                             (Poem originally published in my chapbook, In the Poem an Ocean, Big Table Publishing Co. 2012)