Prose and Poetry Reading

This Wednesday, my former professor Anita Skeen will be hosting a reading for East Lansing/Michigan State's One Book, One Community program's annual writing workshop. Participants from that workshop will be reading poetry and prose. The reading is at 7 pm in the RCAH Theater (jn the basement) of Snyder-Phillips Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Intellectual Laziness

Recently, there's been a series of professors who have been video taped and then have had their statements posted online.  Some of the other issues aside, it is really sad that we live in an age where people don't want to be challenged, as in one case, where it appears a professor was targeted because of his political views.  One of the important reasons people go to college is to expose themselves to different and new ideas.  Sometimes, as individuals, we reject the ideas we're around; other times we don't.  But getting exposed to them in the first place is not a bad thing. 
A friend once argued to me that she didn't want to read certain material because of the effect it might have on her.  But this is silly, because the only way we can understand why something is bad/false/an exaggeration is if we work through the idea first.  There's a famous quote from Aristotle about a strong mind being capable of considering other ideas but then being able to reject them, and that's exactly the kind of strong minds schools should want.  Misrepresenting someone's ideas is not critiquing them; it's attempting to hoodwink other thinkers, which is simply intellectual laziness. 

Ten Mississippi

Tonight, Steve Healey read as part of the Center for Poetry's Spring Reading Series. I really loved it. Dr. Healey has a great sense of language and beat. It was easy to see the influence of a lot of poets, particularly the New York School Poets. (Which was unsurprising, given that he once talked to be about Frank O'Hara.) I was also surprised to discover that his poetry is funny. There's a wonderful imagination there, one that sees things so differently. I was really impressed with the reading and the work.
He read mostly from his forthcoming book, Ten Mississippi. I liked that he had science poems, like "Terminal Moraine." My recent poetry seems to be filled with science metaphors (like "On Why Bureaucracies Work the Way They Do.") He gave a great reading. It's too bad that he'll be leaving MSU soon. He's been a great professor and I think he's been a wonderful addition to the school.