Julie Babcock

Subs have closed for Issue 6 of Public School Poetry, and we're reading through an an amazing bunch of submissions! Thanks for making our Vice Principal selecting work an exciting challenge.

Plank with smoked fish, green vegetables & brown bread

fundamental night

Evening sky with billows of pink and orange

Ann Arbor apocalypse sky

"The humanities really are a resource — a confidence for living in our times.” Dean Sara Guyer on the modern utility of humanities degrees This interview originally appeared on the Division of Arts

"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe

www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

Was uncannily connected to the Gabrielle Calvocoressci poem we also talked about today.

All-capitalized text in red marker on whiteboard: "Enjoy the privilge (sp) of being better.

Found art piece in the room I taught this morning that provoked some amazing discussion.

A tableful of dark red and striped German tomatoes

These tomatoes were hard & green when I picked them before the first frost last month. I was going to fry some today, & discovered a tomato ripening miracle.

Cornell agreed to pay $30m, hand over admissions data with demographic breakdowns, produce annual "campus climate" surveys to check on antisemitism and changes "since October of 2023," and—here's the dumbest part they agreed to—that the govt can open new investigations whenever it wants.

Appeasers.

"Why do you say
I’m dying when I am reading, holding the hand

of an author I know like a lover though they died
years before I was born?"
-- @catemarvin.bsky.social, "The Death of the Humanities"

www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

That looks awesome- looking forward to February reading!

too cool for school obv

I managed to not use an exclamation point there but it was difficult.

College students have a lot to say when you ask them about their favorite trees & this makes me incredibly happy.

not just you- that shift to white is horrifying

My overuse of exclamation points and emotional labor has brought me to a 30-day no exclamation point experiment. Set it up IMRAD-style with a daily log. Anyone want to join the experiment or have esoteric exclamation facts?

Why Trump would be perfect for an honorary U-M doctoral degree Awarding Trump an honorary doctoral degree would be an opportunity to recognize the long way the University has walked in less than two years. U-M juniors may still remember times when the campus code...

If only this was satire. Sadly, we mean it.

This is, sadly, brilliant.

Old Toys 'R Us batteries in a toy spooky spider

Found old Toys 'R'Us batteries in this spider. Was sad when they went bankrupt in 2018. And creeped out now to discover the store's kinda been resurrected through a company called Tru Kids.

Practice Ellen Bryant Voigt To weep unbidden, to wake at night in order to weep, to wait for the whisker on the face of the clock to twitch again, moving the dumb day forward— is this merely practice? Some believe in heaven, some in rest. We'll float, you said. Afterward we'll float between two worlds— five bronze beetles stacked like spoons in one peony blossom, drugged by lust: it I came back as a bird I'd remember that— until everyone we love is safe is what you said.

Ellen Bryant Voigt 💙

The great Sean Thomas Dougherty (also a Public School Poetry contributor in Issue #1!) word-singing the unmeasurable grams we're forced to measure

How many grams? So many stunning, unstoppable grams in this poem.

#nokings protestors students, WWII vets, citizens hold signs: Be the frog they fear you to be & American flags

Ann Arbor resists #nokings

What an issue! And your poems- Thanks for the beautiful bus ride 🎶

photo of four Public School Poetry contributors looking happy together

PSP contributors Molly Spencer, Keith Taylor, Jen Sperry Steinorth & Jeff Kass at our annual pizza party reading. Subs for Issue #6 are open!

So excited to check out Laura Passin's new book! (featuring one of our favorite 'A Wrinkle in Time'-themed poems... www.publicschoolpoetry.com/laura-passin)

Cedar sapling growing out of stone

Go stubbornness! Reminds me of this red cedar that somehow is growing out of our stone fireplace

White envelope mailed from Menard Rebates

My Menard's rebate application was accepted! A premonition for future acceptances?

Jane Goodall: Blast Trump, Putin, Musk, Netanyahu Into Space Jane Goodall recorded an interview in anticipation of her death in which she left behind a wish that President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Russian President

www.moviemaker.com/jane-goodall...