Tuesday, December 16, 2008
And the most important part of the week (from a letter to my friend Beth)
I lost a treasured former student to an auto wreck last week. She was blossoming, doing so well. She would be 20 on the 5th. I went to her funeral, packed with beautiful studded leather multi-pierced smelling of hand-rolled tobacco angels who loved her and sang raucous irish/punk goodbyes. I don't cry at funerals. I suck at death. Everything is numb and sucked inside of me in mid-inhale, afraid I will break something. But their singing broke me free. Sad, Sad and raucous and beautiful and tragic...
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Torches n' Pitchforks to launch over Thanksgiving Holiday
Editor’s Note.
As I write this, I am atop Misery Ridge in Central Oregon. It is a gloomy, and overcast afternoon, the first day of November; 11/1. Whenever I see these ones stacked upright together, I am reminded of those picket fences in my idealized college dreams. Today, in this moment however, I think of Three Fingered Jack, hidden by a rare clotting of Autumn-grey clouds.
These “upright ones” also bring me to think of pitchforks; the three pronged, hand-fashioned tools (or weapons) of a medieval peasantry. I imagine crowds stirred up into a fearful and angry frenzy, armed with pitchforks and also with torches- torches blaring together in an angry mob, illuminating and setting fire to every fear that huddles in the darkness.
Torches and pitchforks. How times have not changed! I asked some local students at Crook County High School what images came to mind when they heard of these paired objects. Their responses trickled in, then gathered momentum and force… “Fear, injustice, isolation, Frankenstein’s creature, being judged for what one was not, being outcast, abandoned, being other—”
I wish I was surrounded by a community of young writers like these when I was in high school. They may have been able to help me put words to the weighty heat that was in my chest as I navigated my teen years, groping for a word, any word that would release what I was trying to voice.
As you read the following pages, I offer a warning: take courage with you. For any community that values its children, who wishes them safety and comfort, it can be unsettling to hear what roils in the depths of them as they begin to put new words to their feelings. Caught in the middle stages of metamorphosis between child and adult, they sometimes resemble the creatures and monsters we were taught to fear as children.
Instead, it is my hope that we, as a community of listeners, put down our pitchforks for the moment. Let us dampen our torches that stain the night sky. In that darkness, huddled together for safety and warmth, let us gaze at the stars in wonder, as the pale moon rises to the East. And let us listen closely to what is rustling in the trees. Let us hear the gathering voices of our young, as they discover what is deep and rattling inside their throats. Let us hear them howl with their entire bodies… wet, squirming and outraged at anything and everything that has held their song back until now. Let us hear their howling melodies mingle together into the rising dark, and wonder at the dawn that will inevitably rise in its place.
Let us hope and pray that they greet the morning with their newfound power,
to tell us a story…
Jim Churchill-Dicks
Editor, Torches n’ Pitchforks
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
A Mentor, A Friend, a Priest, A Brother...
I had the honor of working with Chris Abani this Summer at the Port Townsend Writer's Conference. His fierce kindness and ferocious generosity have deeply marked me.
In his own mother's words, "You can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror, but the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you…"
So true, I have been unmade, and I hope to never recover from this generosity. Listen to the man...
Sunday, June 22, 2008
A Peony for Bill
Reading my friend Bill's blog again at Poet's Farm, I realize that I have been rushing to such a degree, that Memorial Day has passed me and I am approaching the last week of June. Bill's grandmother grew and sold peonies over Memorial Days past. Today, of my four, one peony on the shaded northern bush is still in bloom.
So in honor of those who are gone, but still in bloom inside of us, as Bill so beautifully said, here are some photos to witness and remember the sunlight and color, as well as a poem reminding me of the redemptive power of having my hands in the soil:
Earth
Through the curtains
I watch my mother planting
flowers; alyssum, indigo
lobelia, the bulbs
of lavender tulips, her
clipped nails christened
in earth.
My sons gallop toward her. She squeals
as they tumble together
laughing.
And Mother,
I remember you spinning
me, round and round
in your arms, me
squealing with delight,
your open smile
my only focus
in a rapidly dizzying world.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
And for context sake of the earlier entry- Smart Billy's Prologue
Smart-Billy
By Jim Churchill-Dicks
PROLOGUE
Witness a man, a 19th century trapper, violently shivering in a snow cave with his dog. The dog has shared her heat with the man, has positioned herself between the man and the cave opening, protecting the man from the elements, because she is a good dog.
But now, just now she is dead, heat escaping her body.
Witness the man, buried and shivering in a snow cave up high, near Heaven’s Gate on Mt. Hood. His dead dog is his only company. Wind howls over the mountain, burning with snow in relentless curtains. For the moment, ignore the impulse to wonder why this trapper is so high upon this lifeless slope. Instead, wonder at his body, his sinewy skeleton loosely draped in blotchy pale skin.
Behold the man, the man whose shivering now stops. He strips away his beaver pelts, delirious and warm. He is chanting with graveled breaths, incomprehensible, swaying forward and back, forward and back. Behold the preconceived syllables of his language. The groaning vowels, the gravelly aspirates, the whiny whistle in each breath.
Behold the man’s pink face, freckled and burning through frizzy shocks of a chest-length, auburn beard. Behold the dried and broken blisters on his sharply cut nose, the wild green eyes, and closer, to his right eye, with broken capillaries slowly pooling with blood, just below the cornea’s surface. Behold the caked mucous at the lashes. The whitened salt-stained lower lid from dried tears—
Gaze into this eye, some reddening cloud that could swallow the moon— Look closer. Behold the muscular green filaments twitching in unison, now growing sluggish, failing, as they begin to give way to the pupil, a growing shadow swirling inward. Lean closer. Hear his whistling whisper in a final plume of breath— then stillness.
Wait. You heard something. Let your mind register it. You are correct. A final word, no, a name escaping the trapper’s rapidly cooling lips—
Billy .
By Jim Churchill-Dicks
PROLOGUE
Witness a man, a 19th century trapper, violently shivering in a snow cave with his dog. The dog has shared her heat with the man, has positioned herself between the man and the cave opening, protecting the man from the elements, because she is a good dog.
But now, just now she is dead, heat escaping her body.
Witness the man, buried and shivering in a snow cave up high, near Heaven’s Gate on Mt. Hood. His dead dog is his only company. Wind howls over the mountain, burning with snow in relentless curtains. For the moment, ignore the impulse to wonder why this trapper is so high upon this lifeless slope. Instead, wonder at his body, his sinewy skeleton loosely draped in blotchy pale skin.
Behold the man, the man whose shivering now stops. He strips away his beaver pelts, delirious and warm. He is chanting with graveled breaths, incomprehensible, swaying forward and back, forward and back. Behold the preconceived syllables of his language. The groaning vowels, the gravelly aspirates, the whiny whistle in each breath.
Behold the man’s pink face, freckled and burning through frizzy shocks of a chest-length, auburn beard. Behold the dried and broken blisters on his sharply cut nose, the wild green eyes, and closer, to his right eye, with broken capillaries slowly pooling with blood, just below the cornea’s surface. Behold the caked mucous at the lashes. The whitened salt-stained lower lid from dried tears—
Gaze into this eye, some reddening cloud that could swallow the moon— Look closer. Behold the muscular green filaments twitching in unison, now growing sluggish, failing, as they begin to give way to the pupil, a growing shadow swirling inward. Lean closer. Hear his whistling whisper in a final plume of breath— then stillness.
Wait. You heard something. Let your mind register it. You are correct. A final word, no, a name escaping the trapper’s rapidly cooling lips—
Billy .
Smart Billy: Chapter One Process Brainstorm
any feedback you have for me would be grand.
CHAPTER ONE Brainstorm
EAGLE CREEK OREGON, SPRING 1878:
Billy is fifteen. and here should be the Billy sentences, lots of them, of what he does, repetition of billy. Checking traplines, wondering at father’s eleven week absence, fashioning a homemade bear trap, one that will kill its quarry this time, not like last summer, losing his brother, everything falling apart after that, mother catatonic, father leaving, billy running household on own,
(secret: the father putting younger brother out of misery, covering his face, older brother walks in, to brother’s newly strong kicking. Hidden memory. Not until long after, a revelation, father leaving, not out of shame of the older, but out of shame for himself.)
Describe the carrying back of the comatose brother, of the wet powder from earlier, how the boy failed to fire at the bear, the father surviving by batting the butt of the rifle on the bear’s nose.
Billy finding this bear near punchbowl falls, by Tanner butte, indepth fashioning of this mankiller trap, not aboriginal, not a connection to the circle of life, but of revenge, of hatred for an animal, a quest for atonement.
EXPERIMENT: OPENING SCENE, BILLY TRYING TO FIT THE PIECES TOGETHER, TO NOT GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY, TO VALUE THE READER’S INTELLIGENCE, TO PIECE TOGETHER WHAT HAS HAPPENED, TO LEAVE SOME TO THE IMAGINATION, TO LEAVE SOME FOR LATER. WHAT ABOUT AN EXPERIMENT- A PROSE SESTINA, IS THERE SUCH A THING? 1 STANZA PER 2 PAGES, END LINE WORDS REPEATED OVER AND OVER IN A PARAGRAPH, 3 PARAGRAPHS PER PAGE SWITCH ORDER AS THE SESTINA SWITCHES.
END WORDS TO CONSIDER:
BILLY
BROTHER, BROTH, BROTHEL, BOTHER
GUN (POWDER?)
BEAR (GOOD, WITH HOMONYMS BEAR[A BURDEN] BARE)
FATHER, FARTHER (Water?)
MOTHER SMOTHER MOTH, OTHER
OPTIONAL, IN PLACE OF GUN: RIVER
Final stanza a realization, the father killing brother? Too soon? We’re setting up for the missionaries to find them, and take them, yes?
Just found this on the net, thought I invented something new. But googled "prose sestina" and found this little nugget:
The Prose Sestina. A narrative of seven paragraphs in which six words recur in each paragraph in the same order as dictated by the rules of a sestina: 123456, 615243, 364125, 532614, 451362, 246531, 652431. The paragraphs are of about the same length, except for the last paragraph, which is half as long as the others. (Ron McFarland)
Still, I was thinking a paragraph per word uttered several times, which would be new, would possibly be impossibly droll, or hypnotic, or shamanic, healing the boy, hurtling him toward revelation, to meaning, or at least hurtling him the hell out of his present circumstance-that may be all the exorcism anyone needs. Who knows? But Billy is in crisis, searching for answers by doing works in a routine, maybe needing to mix up the routine in different order to reassemble the puzzle, as it were. Can I do this with action and gesture and very little else, other than the form? Will the form stick out, like an ill-fitting suit, or will it suit Billy, in his tendencies, his story, what he has been mutely shouting to me for the last five years?
Jesus Billy, what are you trying to say to me? What are you needing me to help you figure out? Go home. Rest. The leaves are whispering in the trees. Go to sleep…
CHAPTER ONE Brainstorm
EAGLE CREEK OREGON, SPRING 1878:
Billy is fifteen. and here should be the Billy sentences, lots of them, of what he does, repetition of billy. Checking traplines, wondering at father’s eleven week absence, fashioning a homemade bear trap, one that will kill its quarry this time, not like last summer, losing his brother, everything falling apart after that, mother catatonic, father leaving, billy running household on own,
(secret: the father putting younger brother out of misery, covering his face, older brother walks in, to brother’s newly strong kicking. Hidden memory. Not until long after, a revelation, father leaving, not out of shame of the older, but out of shame for himself.)
Describe the carrying back of the comatose brother, of the wet powder from earlier, how the boy failed to fire at the bear, the father surviving by batting the butt of the rifle on the bear’s nose.
Billy finding this bear near punchbowl falls, by Tanner butte, indepth fashioning of this mankiller trap, not aboriginal, not a connection to the circle of life, but of revenge, of hatred for an animal, a quest for atonement.
EXPERIMENT: OPENING SCENE, BILLY TRYING TO FIT THE PIECES TOGETHER, TO NOT GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY, TO VALUE THE READER’S INTELLIGENCE, TO PIECE TOGETHER WHAT HAS HAPPENED, TO LEAVE SOME TO THE IMAGINATION, TO LEAVE SOME FOR LATER. WHAT ABOUT AN EXPERIMENT- A PROSE SESTINA, IS THERE SUCH A THING? 1 STANZA PER 2 PAGES, END LINE WORDS REPEATED OVER AND OVER IN A PARAGRAPH, 3 PARAGRAPHS PER PAGE SWITCH ORDER AS THE SESTINA SWITCHES.
END WORDS TO CONSIDER:
BILLY
BROTHER, BROTH, BROTHEL, BOTHER
GUN (POWDER?)
BEAR (GOOD, WITH HOMONYMS BEAR[A BURDEN] BARE)
FATHER, FARTHER (Water?)
MOTHER SMOTHER MOTH, OTHER
OPTIONAL, IN PLACE OF GUN: RIVER
Final stanza a realization, the father killing brother? Too soon? We’re setting up for the missionaries to find them, and take them, yes?
Just found this on the net, thought I invented something new. But googled "prose sestina" and found this little nugget:
The Prose Sestina. A narrative of seven paragraphs in which six words recur in each paragraph in the same order as dictated by the rules of a sestina: 123456, 615243, 364125, 532614, 451362, 246531, 652431. The paragraphs are of about the same length, except for the last paragraph, which is half as long as the others. (Ron McFarland)
Still, I was thinking a paragraph per word uttered several times, which would be new, would possibly be impossibly droll, or hypnotic, or shamanic, healing the boy, hurtling him toward revelation, to meaning, or at least hurtling him the hell out of his present circumstance-that may be all the exorcism anyone needs. Who knows? But Billy is in crisis, searching for answers by doing works in a routine, maybe needing to mix up the routine in different order to reassemble the puzzle, as it were. Can I do this with action and gesture and very little else, other than the form? Will the form stick out, like an ill-fitting suit, or will it suit Billy, in his tendencies, his story, what he has been mutely shouting to me for the last five years?
Jesus Billy, what are you trying to say to me? What are you needing me to help you figure out? Go home. Rest. The leaves are whispering in the trees. Go to sleep…
Monday, June 16, 2008
Would that all of my friends be recognized by such kind and generous eyes...
I am shy when it comes to praise, but I'd like to share an article that one of my Freshman wrote about me in CCHS's inaugural online journalistic enterprise called The Rimrock Echo.
http://my.highschooljournalism.org/or/prineville/cchs/article.cfm?eid=17149&aid=220673
They have also featured two of my poems.
Would that all of my friends be recognized by such kind and generous eyes.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Our Father
He extended
his routine flight and flew
above our camp, hovered there
in his rescue chopper, that rumbling chariot
as we ran to the lake shore
to greet him, waved and hollered;
an image of God and angels.
He circled behind the trees,
a thundering perimeter,
a whirring proclamation
I am that I am and you are mine!
Today he snowshoes up to a rented
hut. His wife has barred him from his house,
scattered his belongings
into locked up warehouses,
skilled at taking hostages.
Alone,
a thin candle fixed
into a cut away coffee can, he reads
about a boy, a delinquent boy, the toughest
kid on the Big J ranch,
who rode off on a wounded horse,
beaten ugly, a lazy eye, trailing ear,
he reads
about how the ranchers found him in a clearing,
face buried, sobbing into the horse’s chest
whose sad face stood with newborn watchfulness
and our father,
hunched on a rough hewn bench, far
from home, sobs into his massive, perfect hands
in the fading light,
a vision of God and angels.
A Crack of Light
I remember the salt-stained boulders, encrusted with mussel shells, which flanked the levee to my father’s Coast Guard base, reaching like a prickly arm around the Port Angeles harbor.
I remember delivering casseroles late at night in the pilot’s hangar, being driven through the gates-the guard’s salute because of our officer’s bumper decal. Delivering casseroles to my father as he pulled all-night duty flying his lumbering H-52.
I remember my father, at dawn, dragging his heavy boots across the threshold, peeling his orange flight-suit halfway down, a snake shedding his skin as he chugged milk from the up-turned jug, draining its contents in front of the open refrigerator.
I remember watching him from the crack of light in the swinging kitchen door as he told his wife about his latest search and rescue case, “I lost him,” he whispered in a milky gravel. “Twenty-foot seas, winds at 50 knots, only five feet of rotor-clearance on either side— It was the water’s temperature that killed him.”
His voice was tired, but without emotion, not like when -that same summer, in the middle of the night, when he thought I was asleep in the back seat- he sobbed behind the wheel, a forceful engine choking into gear while listening to the radio, listening to how Thurman Munson –his favorite Yankees catcher- had perished in an airplane crash.
“Augered in—” he cried. “My boy has augered in…” as I watched him through the rear view mirror, the intermittent streetlights staining his warm, wet face.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
It is graduation week here at Crook County High School, but all I can think about is my father, who will make his last flight as a helicopter pilot on the 4th of June; the day of his retirement. He has been a pilot since I was a baby. Over the next couple of entries, I will post some of my archived work about my dad as a pilot.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Letters to You
Dear Mom,
I miss you. I want you to come back. I hope you can come back early so I can see you. I really miss you Mom, because I love you.
I hope you are having a good trip on your plane and everything. I miss you Mom.
Love,
Jaedon
Dear Mom,
This is what I’ve been doing this week. I’ve been hanging out with Uncle Chris, watching Trin’s baseball games, and I’ve been playing baseball games. My baseball games are fun, because my dad gets to see them. I’ve been hitting good, and sometimes I strike out, but it’s okay, and I miss you Mom. And I was catcher. It was fun.
Love,
Jaedon
P.S. Mom, what is the word sarcastic? Just kidding. Dad already told me that this weekend. Sarcastic is just joking, but it’s not funny. No, wait, just kidding. hyuck hyuck hyuck.
Dear Mom,
I really miss you. I can’t wait until we see each other again. I hope you have a good time in Poland.
I wish you could have been at my baseball game with Chris. It was a really awesome game. It was the best game I ever had. I got to play pitcher and catcher. I walked everybody, but I got them all out from passed balls at home plate. When I was catcher, MacGuire threw an inside, high ball, and I jumped and I caught it. I’m writing a picture book about my game.
Dad got a good price for a catcher’s helmet and chest guard. It will also help Jaedon with catching the ball when Dad throws a hard one at him, because he wouldn’t get hurt.
What is the weather like over there? Is it cold? It was really hot over here over the past couple days. Do you like the people over there? Are they nice to you? Dad told me that you’re going to a really sad place, Auschwitz. I heard of places like that in the book “Number the Stars” That story made me sad. I hope you don’t get too sad.
I love you, Mom
Love,
Trinity
Carol,
I have been full of silence, and full of obligation. Both have been a joyful yoke to carry, but they have been heavier without you. The breeze has been so prevalent here that I swear I can smell the ocean, and as it blows steadily east, across our vast country, I hope it blows all of my unspoken I love you’s to you, over the Atlantic and those remote ice-mountains of Greenland. Let this breeze catch up to your train, and flirt with the curve of your nose, while armed guards from Slovakia grunt for your passport. And let this breeze contain the twice daily waterings of our hanging petunias, oregano and basil, and the goodnight kisses on the musky brows of our sons. Let these be the incense to guide you back home.
Back here has had plenty of baseball, but I was still (mistakenly) doubtful about missing the first half of Trinity’s game for the ‘kindergarteners on parade’ mock Summer Olympics. As it turned out, there were 400 kids. Parents nearly filled the entire stadium. And once the Olympic theme played over the loudspeakers, and as each country of tennis-shoed children made their procession on the track in front of us, my emotions leapt to my throat. That processional, that music, all those little kids, and the cheering.
And the cheering. An entire stadium shouting joy and approval to the participants, and all of the kids on the other side of the track cheering the way for each of the runners.
In the first heat, a kindergartener, in the 50m dash, ran his legs out from under him and flopped onto the ground, scraping his knees, wincing in pain, and the crowd, and the crowd, and the boy rose to his feet, and his face, the determination on his face as he ran, alone on the track the rest of the way, and the crowd, and the crowd-
And that is basically how it was for the rest of the evening. Character and courage being born, innocence preserved, and the joy of just running, and the crowd, the crowd, as Jaedon trudged around the last corner of the 400 meter dash, but when reaching the crowd, behold the crowd, and the shine returning to his face, and the speed, what speed!returned to his legs for the rest of the race, as the crowd, the crowd and the female announcer’s voice, a seasoned teacher with a self-aware humorous tone in that disembodied, god-like Francis-McDormand-from-Fargo voice, exclaiming “Come on! All the way! You can do it!”
And I remember when I was in grade school, the announcer on the television, in disbelief, in utter joy, asking a question that I am finally able to answer, “Do you believe in miracles?”
Yes.
Love,
Jim
P.S. Sorry for calling Lynn baby over the phone. She really sounded like you.
I miss you. I want you to come back. I hope you can come back early so I can see you. I really miss you Mom, because I love you.
I hope you are having a good trip on your plane and everything. I miss you Mom.
Love,
Jaedon
Dear Mom,
This is what I’ve been doing this week. I’ve been hanging out with Uncle Chris, watching Trin’s baseball games, and I’ve been playing baseball games. My baseball games are fun, because my dad gets to see them. I’ve been hitting good, and sometimes I strike out, but it’s okay, and I miss you Mom. And I was catcher. It was fun.
Love,
Jaedon
P.S. Mom, what is the word sarcastic? Just kidding. Dad already told me that this weekend. Sarcastic is just joking, but it’s not funny. No, wait, just kidding. hyuck hyuck hyuck.
Dear Mom,
I really miss you. I can’t wait until we see each other again. I hope you have a good time in Poland.
I wish you could have been at my baseball game with Chris. It was a really awesome game. It was the best game I ever had. I got to play pitcher and catcher. I walked everybody, but I got them all out from passed balls at home plate. When I was catcher, MacGuire threw an inside, high ball, and I jumped and I caught it. I’m writing a picture book about my game.
Dad got a good price for a catcher’s helmet and chest guard. It will also help Jaedon with catching the ball when Dad throws a hard one at him, because he wouldn’t get hurt.
What is the weather like over there? Is it cold? It was really hot over here over the past couple days. Do you like the people over there? Are they nice to you? Dad told me that you’re going to a really sad place, Auschwitz. I heard of places like that in the book “Number the Stars” That story made me sad. I hope you don’t get too sad.
I love you, Mom
Love,
Trinity
Carol,
I have been full of silence, and full of obligation. Both have been a joyful yoke to carry, but they have been heavier without you. The breeze has been so prevalent here that I swear I can smell the ocean, and as it blows steadily east, across our vast country, I hope it blows all of my unspoken I love you’s to you, over the Atlantic and those remote ice-mountains of Greenland. Let this breeze catch up to your train, and flirt with the curve of your nose, while armed guards from Slovakia grunt for your passport. And let this breeze contain the twice daily waterings of our hanging petunias, oregano and basil, and the goodnight kisses on the musky brows of our sons. Let these be the incense to guide you back home.
Back here has had plenty of baseball, but I was still (mistakenly) doubtful about missing the first half of Trinity’s game for the ‘kindergarteners on parade’ mock Summer Olympics. As it turned out, there were 400 kids. Parents nearly filled the entire stadium. And once the Olympic theme played over the loudspeakers, and as each country of tennis-shoed children made their procession on the track in front of us, my emotions leapt to my throat. That processional, that music, all those little kids, and the cheering.
And the cheering. An entire stadium shouting joy and approval to the participants, and all of the kids on the other side of the track cheering the way for each of the runners.
In the first heat, a kindergartener, in the 50m dash, ran his legs out from under him and flopped onto the ground, scraping his knees, wincing in pain, and the crowd, and the crowd, and the boy rose to his feet, and his face, the determination on his face as he ran, alone on the track the rest of the way, and the crowd, and the crowd-
And that is basically how it was for the rest of the evening. Character and courage being born, innocence preserved, and the joy of just running, and the crowd, the crowd, as Jaedon trudged around the last corner of the 400 meter dash, but when reaching the crowd, behold the crowd, and the shine returning to his face, and the speed, what speed!returned to his legs for the rest of the race, as the crowd, the crowd and the female announcer’s voice, a seasoned teacher with a self-aware humorous tone in that disembodied, god-like Francis-McDormand-from-Fargo voice, exclaiming “Come on! All the way! You can do it!”
And I remember when I was in grade school, the announcer on the television, in disbelief, in utter joy, asking a question that I am finally able to answer, “Do you believe in miracles?”
Yes.
Love,
Jim
P.S. Sorry for calling Lynn baby over the phone. She really sounded like you.
Friday, April 11, 2008
The Dimes at Crook County High School Tonight
These guys are the real deal. They are doing a benefit for our high school's Americana (singer/songwriter) program. Their album, "The Silent Generation" is brilliant, and reminiscent of the Portland influx of Colin Meloy, The Shins, and Death Cab. Still they are uniquely their own, and they are even better in person. A great bunch of guys who gave us a teaser of tonight's concert during 5th period today. A very well-timed upbeat/melancholy event after a very emotional week at CCHS.
They've been featured in many places, including SPIN. Check out the buzz at
http://thedimes.com/index3.html
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
For L.B.
Sunday afternoon, one of my favorite students got trampled by a bull in rodeo practice, breaking several ribs and puncturing his lung. We almost lost him Sunday night in the ICU. It is still touch and go, and will be a long slow recovery, but it's looking up. His recovery is being documented by his family at the following site: http://caringbridge.org/visit/loganblasdell
The halls of Crook County High School have been dimmer without his "Howdy, Mr. C-D" every morning.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Letters From the Mountaintop
Goddard College has a tradition of students writing a letter to themselves at the end of each intensive on-campus residency. While going through some old books of mine, this letter, from my Winter '04 residency, fell out from between the pages. The timing for me is still perfect:
Dear Jim,
Write from your spine, without arrogance or false humility- both are a form of self-hatred.
Write as if you were God when he created the universe-made small afterwards.
Indeed, they will increase- you will decrease.
You are a sincere visitor and you are welcome inside.
Cast away your doubt.
Always remember, people are dying a little bit every day. Bring them life- and fill your time doing the same thing for yourself-
You are a love poet-You bring people back into their bodies again-
Expect originality and magic from yourself.
Love,
Yourself
Dear Jim,
Write from your spine, without arrogance or false humility- both are a form of self-hatred.
Write as if you were God when he created the universe-made small afterwards.
Indeed, they will increase- you will decrease.
You are a sincere visitor and you are welcome inside.
Cast away your doubt.
Always remember, people are dying a little bit every day. Bring them life- and fill your time doing the same thing for yourself-
You are a love poet-You bring people back into their bodies again-
Expect originality and magic from yourself.
Love,
Yourself
English Matters
From Master English Teacher, Jim Burke
"Teaching English has always been a privilege for me. As I write this, school has just finished up and my head still swims with the images of what my students did on their different culminating projects, what they said in their portfolio cover letters, where they reflected on the year. I feel very humbled by the achievement of my students when I consider all they learned. As I watched my students stand up in class and speak at length about different topics, as I watched them stand to speak at the funeral of one of my students, and as I watched former students of mine stand to speak at graduation, I was reminded again and again how important our work is. If you find yourself surrounded by people who do not appreciate this, seek your companions in other departments or online. Spend your days and the coming years with colleagues who feel the pride we should all feel for helping all our students tell their story even as we are writing and revising our own in classrooms across America."
"Teaching English has always been a privilege for me. As I write this, school has just finished up and my head still swims with the images of what my students did on their different culminating projects, what they said in their portfolio cover letters, where they reflected on the year. I feel very humbled by the achievement of my students when I consider all they learned. As I watched my students stand up in class and speak at length about different topics, as I watched them stand to speak at the funeral of one of my students, and as I watched former students of mine stand to speak at graduation, I was reminded again and again how important our work is. If you find yourself surrounded by people who do not appreciate this, seek your companions in other departments or online. Spend your days and the coming years with colleagues who feel the pride we should all feel for helping all our students tell their story even as we are writing and revising our own in classrooms across America."
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Searching for Benjamin Rush
From an Anonymous Query from CousinConnect.com: I need to find the connection between my Great Grandmother Jennie Rush Gartman (MO-TX-OR), family has said she was related to signer Benjamin Rush?
My Response:
To the writer of the above query,
Greetings from Oregon. At the risk of sounding presumptuous, it is quite possible that you and I are related. I have no direct answer to your query into the link between Jenny Gartman and Benjamin Rush(I am currently searching for the same link myself.)
If your Jenny is the same ancestor as mine, (she would be my great-great grandmother,) then she settled in St. Helens Oregon with her husband Jasper-a simple yet handsome fellow with a mischievous grin covered by a handlebar moustache (from what I remember of the photograph).
They had three children, I believe: Bill, Neva, and Edna.
Edna (10-26-1903 - 12-23-81) was my great-grandmother, who married Kenneth Preston Howell.
They had three sons, Kenneth, Robert, and Richard (the youngest)
I am Richard's eldest grandson. He is the one who has told me stories of how- when he was a young boy- he was visited by a very old female relative of Jenny's, who claimed that they were related to the great Benjamin Rush. Since he was a young boy with little attention span, he could not recall the lineage that she shared. He only remembered thinking that "she was the oldest woman he had ever seen."
As your query was in 2003, my hope is that you may have found the information you are looking for. I also hope that this further information finds you in good health and in good spirits.
If you have the notion or the time, I would be grateful for any information that you may have found. I am truly excited by the possibility that we may be two travellers searching for the same source of the same tree.
Be well.
Warm Regards,
Jim Churchill-Dicks
Friday, February 22, 2008
Resolution/Revelation
At a recent teacher’s inservice based on Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach, I was given time to write a resolution to myself–a resolution to have teaching become a sustainable career. All embarrassment of my sentimental gushiness aside, it was a well-timed, (perhaps career-saving) workshop, where I uncovered some important revelations, which I realize are now within my grasp to attain:
I commit to sustain, better yet, to cultivate my life- to dirty my hands in my yard, to prepare my grass to be played on, run on, camped on- to prepare my little plot of earth for fruit trees- plums, apples and pears- to build a strawberry tower, and fill it with bulbous fruit.
I commit to drinking a good red wine with my wife, while we sit and swoon on our back porch that is strung with paper lanterns and hanging flower baskets.
I will play catch with my sons whenever they ask me to. I will see every inning and cheer at every game. I will write to live, and live to write, reclaiming my body on Misery Ridge. I will remember every ridge that I have balanced myself upon and take the time to be silent.
And in that stillness, I will remember a story worth telling; no, beyond telling. I will hone my craft, and show my students the power of their stories. I will show them how to speak for themselves- show them the power of so many other stories, so that some day, in a time of great need, those stories mingled together with their own will have the power to transform their lives for the better.
I commit to sustain, better yet, to cultivate my life- to dirty my hands in my yard, to prepare my grass to be played on, run on, camped on- to prepare my little plot of earth for fruit trees- plums, apples and pears- to build a strawberry tower, and fill it with bulbous fruit.
I commit to drinking a good red wine with my wife, while we sit and swoon on our back porch that is strung with paper lanterns and hanging flower baskets.
I will play catch with my sons whenever they ask me to. I will see every inning and cheer at every game. I will write to live, and live to write, reclaiming my body on Misery Ridge. I will remember every ridge that I have balanced myself upon and take the time to be silent.
And in that stillness, I will remember a story worth telling; no, beyond telling. I will hone my craft, and show my students the power of their stories. I will show them how to speak for themselves- show them the power of so many other stories, so that some day, in a time of great need, those stories mingled together with their own will have the power to transform their lives for the better.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
For Ron (and for those we lost):
I’ve just had the distinct pleasure of reconnecting with one of my dear friends from elementary – high school. He had just found out about a mutual friend of ours, named Chris, who died of an accidental drug overdose several years ago.
For those of you who know me well, what I am about to tell you will speak volumes. Ron was one of the key players on our Red Shirted Little League team sponsored by the Rock Creek Tavern. He is one of the autographed names on my stepfather’s baseball which is displayed in a place of honor in his office in Portland. But more importantly, the end of our childhoods spent on that West Union baseball diamond are etched into the fondest memories of my life. Ron even remembers when my father saw my first and last ballgame I’ve ever played, when I struck out in epic whiffing fashion while my father was trying to photograph me in the batter’s box. So in honor of our time together, and in memory of the teammates we lost, (Another of our teammates is in prison) I present the revised version of my story “Son of Abraham” in the next entry.
Bruce Cockburn once sang, “To be held in the heart of a friend is to be a king…” Ron is my friend from long ago, and it is so good to reconnect with him.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Trinity's first "Poetry Jam"
This was Trinity last Friday, after performing the poem, "The SSSnake Hotel" by Brian "Spike" Moses in front of all the 4th graders and parents. Quite the tuckered out hipster. Am I proud? Am I proud?
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