From another teacher--my first workshop instructor, teaching his first class--I learned little. This was totally my fault. I signed up for his class only because my best friend thought he was cute and didn't want to be in a night class by herself. I sat there and read poems by other students, wrote some jingles of my own, and thought, So what? Then I heard him read his own poems and was entranced by The Word.
Since then, I've studied his work and read his fiction and nonfiction. From him, I learned how to teach the poetic line. Here's the poem that serves as springboard:
Art Class
by James Galvin
Let us begin with a simple line,
Drawn as a child would draw it,
To indicate the horizon,
More real than the real horizon,
Which is less than line,
Which is visible abstraction, a ratio.
The line ravishes the page with implications
Of white earth, white sky!
The horizon moves as we move,
Making us feel central.
But the horizon is an empty shell—
Strange radius whose center is peripheral.
As the horizon draws us on, withdrawing,
The line draws us in,
Requiring further lines,
Engendering curves, verticals, diagonals,
Urging shades, shapes, figures…
What should we place, in all good faith,
On the horizon? A stone?
An empty chair? A submarine?
Take your time. Take it easy.
The horizon will not stop abstracting us.
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