Writers pride themselves on understanding — and caring deeply about — the minutiae of their craft. I once met a writer who had a semicolon tattooed on her forearm. When I asked her why she had such a tattoo, she plainly said, “Because I’m an elitist.” I got what she meant, and somehow calling herself [...]
I kept thinking about home on the way to a sea turtle conservation center located at the northern most tip of Zanzibar, in the village of Nungwi. It was an early, rain-soaked Saturday morning, and as we wound up Zanzibar’s roads lined with lush green banana leaves and bursting coconut palms, I was thinking a [...]
Lately I’ve been working my way through Selected Stories by Sholom Aleichem, whom I’ve never read before but am greatly enjoying. In his story “You Musn’t Weep – It’s Yom-Tev”, a young boy struggles to maintain the innocence of childhood while his father is slowly dying from an unnamed disease (probably pneumonia) and his mother and [...]
In a recent series of opinion articles on The New York Times website, various thinkers ponder the wisdom and efficacy of the changes to student loan debt repayment proposed by Obama: that borrowers be able to consolidate loans at a slightly lower rate, that Income Based Repayment plans be made more accessible, and that loan [...]
On Friday, I woke up early, around 5:15 a.m. and checked my email. There, amid the junk mail, was a subject line that left me stunned. It informed me that a student I’d had for two courses at Hunter College, in 2007 and 2008, had been killed. Walking down a road on Long Island last [...]
In the Autumn issue of Contrary: There’s barely room to breathe. Her knees pressed to the rear of the machine, chest pressed to her knees, back to the wall. Grime and furred dust coats the floor beneath her, sticky on the skin. Clumping to her hands as she pushes further into the corner. Her heartbeat skitters along [...]
When the topic of running comes up, I have a favorite line I tell people: “I run because it gives me the illusion that I’m getting somewhere.” They usually laugh, and I laugh with them. Except it’s not entirely a joke. I’ve chronicled many grievances on these pixilated pages: academic, professional, technological. But I’ve been [...]
When Salman Rushdie is an earlier adopter than me, I know I’m out of step with technology. But so it is. Using Twitter to weigh in on Kim Kardashian’s divorce from Kris Humphries (two people I frankly know absolutely nothing about) after just 72 days of marriage, Rushdie proved that he could be at once [...]
Last week I received an email from a former student asking for a letter of recommendation for graduate school, and I had no problem saying yes. He had taken three courses with me in three years, and been one of the best students I’ve had in my eight years of teaching. He is a gifted [...]
I should be working right now. But I am preoccupied by the occupations. All around the world, from New York City to Rome, Boston to Barcelona, Miami to Moscow, every day citizens have organized to occupy the centres of financial power that have for decades caused and perpetuated gaps between rich and poor. There’s been [...]
Last week the New York Times ran an article about an Indiana school district that has dispensed with textbooks, pencils, and the o ther antiquated tools of primary education. Instead, each desk features a laptop computer. The logic is that, being the 21st Century and all, kids need to learn how to use technology. A [...]
This morning my commuter train was momentarily delayed in Justice, a small town just beyond the southwest side of Chicago. The train was stopped next to a subdivision, at the end of a cul de sac. From where I sat, the near view was wide and I could clearly see the first few houses on [...]
Imagine taking a class on n on-Euclidian geometry. Now imagine that your professor doesn’t know anything about geometry at all, let alone an obscure, archaic branch of it. Inste ad, she h as a PhD in art history. But imagine, too, that this is an extremely rigorous class, at one of the oldest colleges in [...]
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about poems. My first book of poems is about to come out (obligatory self endorsement), I’ve been teaching poetry in all three of my classes (one a creative writing class, one a composition class, one a glorious class on contemporary poets in which I get to teach all my [...]