Academia, My Academia

Academia, My Academia
 
Let’s see:  one night’s tv
news just for reference,
savvy to the larger context
of my academic practice:
 
drought
fire
flood
economy
jobs
is college worth it?
cures for cancer
causes for cancer
ritylan, adderal,
and some pill for
epilepsy that actually
gives a manic high
teen agers this and
that: drugs, sex, body
image photo shopping
slaughter in Syria . . .
 
And in the mean time I & my
8 o'clock dillar-a-dollar scholars
gather around some text like, say
“Young Goodman Brown,”
(Hawthorne my love) and
consider the nature of good
and evil—talking amongst
ourselves about a young man
who wanted to be good-so-bad
he couldn’t afford the bad-it-takes
to get there.
 
I urge them to write down my
remarks, to think critically about
these thoughts & texts & ideas
and what-each-other-said for  
it will all surely be on the final
exam and if they take good notes,
& do well, they won’t have to
got to some  Vietnam or Private
Idaho, Iraq or equivalent. hello
so to speak &  that’s what a liberal
art education is good for: growing
an Over All Attitude, Outlook, Frame
of Minding,  appropriate  goals, aims
and  measureable outcome skill-sets..
 
Class done.
Another course.
Another room-of-our-own.