Back to School!

Today was my first class of the fall semester.  I have to shout it from the rooftop -- I really am in love with school right now!  Apparently, the three week break and a solid GRE score were enough to leave me feeling rejuvenated and ready for an intense fall line up.

I started with a poetry genre class tonight, which I was half-terrified and half-excited about since I love poetry, but it often eludes me.  First off, as opposed to my summer classes, I am back into graduate seminars and don't have any undergraduates in the class, which means that the depth of discussion was WAY above what I was dealing with all summer.  The tug on one's morale when sitting through asinine comments by undergraduate seniors who think they know everything (which means they aren't yet smart enough to know that they don't know anything) cannot be overstated.  Second, the class is small - only 9 people - so it feels intimate, which is in keeping with the nature of poetry.  Finally, we kicked off the class today with Emily Dickinson.  

What more could I have asked for????  I love her poetry so much!  We talked about one of her poems for a full hour, which was just awesome.  I am sharing it with you below so you can share in my joy of uber-modern interiority and abstract bliss!

As an added bonus...I laughed to myself thinking of "the Seal Despair" as the seal that ate Buster's hand in Arrested Development...and the resultant despair that plagued him due to his dangerous prosthesis.  I do love puns, and apparently my subconscious does too.

And now, I give you Miss Emily Dickinson:

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons--

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes--

Heavenly Hurt it gives us--

We can find no scar,

But internal difference, 

Where the Meanings, are--

None may teach it--Any--

'Tis the Seal Despair--

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air--

When it comes, the Landscape listens--

Shadows--hold their breath--

When it goes, 'tis like the Distance

On the look of Death--