Saturday, September 12, 2020
I received an email from a reader of this blog the other day in which the poet expressed concern about the lack of recent posts. My apologies to anyone who has visited since September 1st, and not seen anything new. Teaching on-line is daunting, at least for those of us who want to provide an experience similar to being in the classroom. For reasons of profession discretion, I am unable to speak about other aspects at my job that have absorbed more time and energy than is usually extracted by my employment.
I have, in fact, had to give considerable attention to making a choice about how much longer I will continue to work full-time as a professor of literature and creative writing. “Not much longer” is the most recent preference. In point of fact, I will probably start teaching half-time starting a year from now.
In the meantime, Linda and I are enduring an onslaught of poisonous air that is unlike anything I have breathed for many years. By chance, we ordered an air filtering machine five days ago and it has arrived in time to get to work in our household. The air quality button glowed bright red immediately after it started working; it very briefly subsided to purple (“poor air quality”) after running for a half-hour, but within a minute burbled back to incandescent red. About an hour ago, I quickly darted out the front door to get the day’s mail and nearly gagged at the stench outside. The West Coast of the United States is undergoing a life-shortening ecological implosion.
In regards to “retirement,” I am allowed to work half-time for five years, which would mean that I could still teach at CSULB until the spring of 2026. After having my lungs and circulatory system bruised with this week’s task force of pollutants. we’ll see how close I get to that finish line.
Linda and I went to the studio yesterday to get some photographs for a project that is documenting the artists working at the Loft in San Pedro. I suggested to the photographers that an exhibit of the photographs (along with one recent work by each of the artists) might make an interesting show in the upstairs exhibition space. One of the hard parts for the Loft during this quarantine measures necessitated by the pandemic is that a very fine exhibit had just been hung before everything shut down. The show was hung with great care; it was kind of thing in which eye can feel how each piece is in exact parallel definition, no matter how large the incremental jump from one piece to the next. It is still on the walls, but it might well be a year from now before anyone sees the show.
Poetry is still available for its audiences, however. The W – E (West – East) series, founded by Lynn McGee and Susana H. Case, continues tomorrow afternoon.
Bill Mohr invites you to a scheduled Zoom poetry reading.
DATE AND Time: SUNDAY, September 13, 2020
4:00 PM Pacific Time
POETS
Tina Cane
Robin Myers
Allison Blevens
Anthony Seidman
If you wish to receive the link, please feel free to write me at William.BillMohr@gmail.com
I hope you can join us.
About Bill Mohr