this holiday season, help me help kids get two weeks at camp next summer

 

My five decades of experiences at Frost Valley have taught me pretty much everything I know how to do – to be a patient parent, to be an attentive citizen, to be a teacher who cares personally about his students, and indeed to do whatever is in my power to preserve what Frost Valley does for kids.

I’ve seen Frost Valley make the lives of kids better in just two weeks. Seriously. I’ve seen it. Many times. Probably you’ve heard me tell these stories. No space for those stories here, but click on this video 

                     http://youtu.be/ivqXQFurfIs

and take a good look at these kids’ expressions – and you’ll easily be able to imagine – or, from your own experience, remind yourself of - the impact of this place on children and families. I’m totally committed to it.

To kids whose families cannot afford two weeks at camp in the summer, we at Frost Valley make $650,000 available annually. It’s our goal never to say no to a family who wants to send their child to camp – no matter the family’s economic status, nor the child’s ability or disability.

We need to raise the funds to make this financial aid – “camperships” – possible. My goal is to raise $10,000 before December 31, 2013. Will you please help me help these kids? Thank you so much for considering it. Just click this link

             http://frostvalley.kintera.org/thegreatestgift/afilreis

and you'll see my Frost Valley web page, my goal, etc. Click on "GIVE NOW" and make a donation.  Thank you so much!

I'm personally very grateful for your help. Please help me help these kids whose families cannot afford to send their children to camp. This kind of support has been no less than life-changing and indeed life-saving for some.

- Al

photos taken in 2013 of Oskar Schindler's factory

diorama of "In a Station of the Metro"

Madeleine Wattenbarger, an intern at Poets House, has created a diorama of Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro," which will be used, in part, to teach that poem to children. Here are two views.

praise for PennSound

Happily received by email today:

"I'd like to take a moment to thank you & everyone else involved for PennSound & all related to it; I'm a performer & composer working in contemporary music in the UK, & I discovered PennSound while I was researching Olson, Niedecker, Cage & others during my Composition PhD. I think it's fair to say that it has changed my life, both in that it introduced me to poets who now are essential to me, & in that their work has been & continues as a constant inspiration for my own work, pushing me to think much harder & more creatively about form, score space & a host of other elements in the music I write. I also learnt to sing Jerry Rothenberg's Horse Songs (with his encouragement), which was fun."

Fall 2013 ModPo webcast schedule

Fall 2013 ModPo webcast schedule:

(Note: these sessions are live but video recordings are available immediately afterwards.)

1. Monday, September 9, noon (eastern time)
2. Wednesday, September 18, 9 PM (eastern time)
3. Wednesday, September 25, 10 AM (eastern time)
4. Wednesday, October 2, noon (eastern time) [a discussion of Stein's "Tender Buttons" with three poets]
5. Tuesday, October 8, 9 PM (eastern time)
6. Wednesday, October 16, 10 AM (eastern time)
7. Wednesday, October 23, noon (eastern time)
8. Tuesday, November 5, noon (eastern time) [live webcast session of PoemTalk on Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"]
9. Wednesday, November 6, 9:30 AM (eastern time) [Please note that Daylight Savings Time ends on November 3.]
10. Thursday, November 14, noon (eastern time) [with invited guests from among the chapter 9.3 poets: Mike Magee, Tracie Morris, Kenneth Goldsmith]
11. Monday, November 18, noon (eastern time) [final words]

For an overview of this free, non-credit, 10-week course on modern and contemporary American poetry, click here.

To enroll, click here.

ModPo expands the contemporary poetry community

Three wonderful ModPo people - they indeed met through ModPo last fall - converged on the Goldsmith-sponsored multi-room multi-poet reading at MoMA the other day. Kathleen Matson Blurock, Kent Ekberg, and Mónica Savirón. Kenny Goldsmith reports that he met a bunch of ModPo people at the event. Needless to say, I'm delighted that the contemporary poetry community has expanded in this way.

Joan Didion on Hemingway

Sensible Nonsense at the Writers House

For more about this event, click here.

Wallace Stevens, "The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain"

There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.

- -

Audio recording of Stevens performing this poem: MP3.

Link to PennSound's Wallace Stevens page: LINK.

Anthony DeCurtis interviews Loudon Wainwright III (video)

 

Loudon Wainwright III interviewed by Anthony DeCurtis - the 2013 installment of our Blutt Singer-Songwriter Symposium at the Kelly Writers House. You can watch a video recording of the complete program by clicking here.

new Writers House podcast: Roger Angell

Roger Angell at the Kelly Writers House in 2005 as a Writers House Fellow, greeting then-student Jamie-Lee Josselyn. Today we have released episode 25 in the "Kelly Writers House Podcasts" series. The episode is introduced by Amaris Cuchanski, based on an excerpt from the full recording of a one-hour interview/discussion edited by Nick DeFina. Writers House podcasts can be found here, and can also be found in iTunes. The full recording of the discussion with Angell, and a recording of his presentation the night before (about baseball and memoir) can be found on Angell's KWH Fellows page.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

ArtsEdge year-long residency sponsored by Kelly Writers House

We are now accepting applications for the ARTSEDGE RESIDENCY PROJECT, a joint venture of the Kelly Writers House and Penn's Facilities and Real Estate Services: http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/involved/awards/artsedge/. DEADLINE: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 (at midnight).

The ARTSEDGE PROJECT offers a one year residency for an emerging writer. The residency includes an apartment at 40th and Chestnut, studio/writing space in the AIR Space artistic nexus, and close affiliation with Penn's writing communities.

During the course of the residency, the ArtsEdge writer will be encouraged to develop at least one project at the Writers House or the Rotunda. Past residents have produced staged readings (http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0109.php#22), organized panel discussions (http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0310.php#25), performed readings at Writers House (http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/1110.php#2), and coordinated other projects  (http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/1009.php#15).

Visit the ArtsEdge website for more information and details about the project: http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/involved/awards/artsedge.

TO APPLY, please submit materials below to residencyproject@writing.upenn.edu:

(1) letter of interest, (2) CV or resume, (3) writing sample (maximum 30 pages), (4) personal contact information (phone & email), and (5) contact information for three professional references.

*** SUBMIT ALL MATERIALS AS ONE DOCUMENT (Word or PDF preferred). ***

And please help us out by forwarding this announcement far and wide!

ADDRESS ALL QUESTIONS to: residencyproject@writing.upenn.edu.

Jacket2 in Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly ran a story today called "Literary Magazines Adapt to the Digital Age," and of course I'm pleased that Jacket2 is mentioned first - and one of our editors, Michael Hennessey, is quoted.

Wall Street Journal article about MOOCs

WSJ home page, 3/6/13

The home page of the Wall Street Journal today (March 6, 2013). Look hard and see a photo of me, along with an article by Katie Rosman about the MOOC phenomenon. Here is a link to the article at the WSJ web site (it might be behind a paywall), and here is a link to a PDF copy of the article as it appeared in the paper.

the university in the city

Page 73 of Judith Rodin's book on urban universities (I was the first among Penn's faculty/staff to use the mortgage incentive plan to buy a house in West Philadelphia). I have *loved* living here the 15 years since, raising my kids here (this diverse & arts-lively part of the city has had such a positive effect on them) & finding myself involved in & learning about the concerns of the neighborhood - not to mention being able to walk or bike to work, and easily go back to campus at night to meet with students & attend their events.

New York Times editorial on online courses

"The online revolution offers intriguing opportunities for broadening access to education. But, so far, the evidence shows that poorly designed courses can seriously shortchange the most vulnerable students." - NY Times editorial today. 

Yes, poorly designed courses (online or otherwise) are bad. Thank you.

Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright visited the Kelly Writers House last night for our annual Blutt Singer-Songwriter Symposium, an event that included an interview conducted by Anthony DeCurtis. Here is a video clip of Loudon singing "White Wino," in response to Anthony's questions about Loudon's mother.

travel grant

The Terry B. Heled Travel Grant at the Kelly Writers House

http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/involved/awards/heled

purpose

As a way of memorializing her mother, Terry B. Heled - and of honoring the students of her alma mater in gratitude for the encouragement her own research and writing received while she was at Penn - Mali Heled Kinberg (C'95) has created this endowed fund at the Kelly Writers House that, each summer, enables a student to travel for the purpose of conducting the research that will lead to a significant writing project.

the grant

The winner of the Heled Travel Grant will receive $2,000 toward the costs of summer travel, for a researched writing project requiring archives, facilities, people (e.g. those to be interviewed), materials, and/or terrain that can only be found at a travel destination or destinations. Applicants who can describe such resources in detail will be at an advantage. Think expansively.  Priority will be given to those proposing longer trips, especially travel beyond North America, but any travel plan -- to any place, of any length -- will receive serious consideration based on the quality of the project. Paddle down the Mississippi to study American literary history firsthand. Track down the surviving members of the "Ghost Army" of World War II to learn about alternative, theatrical warfare. Travel to Greece or Vienna or Japan to research and write about your linguistic roots.

The proposed research experience should lead specifically to a writing project of some kind. (Students researching topics in non-humanities subjects are welcome to apply, but note that the result of the research should be a significant and creative piece of writing.)

who is eligible?

Any currently matriculated University of Pennsylvania junior, sophomore or freshman is eligible.

after the summer

After the summertime travel, the Heled Grant recipient will present the results of his or her research in a program at the Kelly Writers House. The format of the session at the Writers House is wide open; the purpose of the event is to create a sense of excitement about students traveling for research as well as, of course, to give the winner of the grant a forum for showing off his or her achievement and telling the story of the trip.

how to apply

The deadline for all applications is Wednesday, March 6, 2013. Candidates should include:

* a cover letter giving a very brief summary of the project and a description of relevant experience (coursework as well as non-academic);
* a detailed two-page description of the project - the research trip and the proposed writing;
* an estimate of all costs associated with the trip;
* a current resume that includes, as an appendix, a complete list of relevant courses taken, heavily annotated to give descriptions of projects and papers prepared for each course;
* a writing sample, no longer than 15 pages.

Applications should be emailed to Mingo Reynolds at mingo@writing.upenn.edu.

3805 Locust Walk in 1953

This photograph was taken on May 29, 1953, on the 38th block of Locust Street in West Philadelphia. The photographer was looking east toward the center of the University of Pennsylvania. Today, from this vantage, one would see Locust Walk (not Street), and in the distance one would see the street go upward over the 38th Street pedestrian bridge. Along the right side of this view today one would see the edge of Harnwell House ("High Rise East") and then, further away, the front edge of the Class of 1920 Commons. The Samuel Sloan-designed house at 3805 Locust Walk - now the Kelly Writers House - is not visible here (as it is set back from the street), but near where we've placed a red dot is the street-side path that leads to the porch and front door of the house. For more information about this photograph, click here.

64 Ashbery poems

LINK

Source: Uploaded by user via Al on Pinterest

homecoming weekend celebration to mark the 15th anniversary of the Kelly Writers House

This is a video recording of the 15th anniversary celebration of the Kelly Writers House, held during homecoming weekend that year. Three of my own former students, and KWH's first Director, Kerry Sherin Wright, presented their work. But before they did that, I gave a high-speed talk on the founding of the Writers House three times in succession: first a "conservative" narrative of KWH, then a liberal narrative, and finally a radical narrative.

Conversation with Ken Lum

tech apps for saving long-form nonfiction

This video is an excerpt from "pitch night" for our "Entrepreneurial Jounalism" class taught by Sam Apple. These two student presentations proposed new applications to address current trends and problems in long-form nonfiction writing and publishing. You can watch the complete video - with all the student pitches - here. This program was sponsored by our Creative Ventures program.

Friedman's hope: Ines and Daniel, ModPo people

Thomas Friedman's column on the MOOC phenomenon - a follow-up to an earlier piece he published last spring - expresses great optimism: "LORD knows there’s a lot of bad news in the world today to get you down, but there is one big thing happening that leaves me incredibly hopeful about the future, and that is the budding revolution in global online higher education." He mentions ModPo without identifying it clearly, but Ines Cifuentes, a ModPo student, explains further in her comment in response to the Friedman article.

material is difficult, but spirit of curiosity produces good results

University of Pennsylvania professor Al Filreis, who teaches Modern & Contemporary American Poetry, says that teaching online has given him his “most extraordinary pedagogical experience” in 30 years of teaching. “The course is rigorous and fast-paced, and the material is difficult, but the spirit of curiosity and investigation among the students produced very good results,” he says. “Several eminent poetry critics joined the course to rate the quality of the students' critical writing and came away very impressed -- and surprised. We discovered that a qualitative, interactive humanities course can indeed work in the MOOC format."

Quoted from "Learning From MOOCs," by Andrew Ng.

Kelly Writers House in 1908

3805 Locust Walk (what is now Kelly Writers House) in 1908.

audio introduction to week 1 of ModPo

Here is the audio introduction to the first week of ModPo: MP3 (12 mins.) There's still time to enroll in this free online course on Modern & Contemporary American poetry: enroll here.

Thomas Devaney mini-interview

Thomas Devaney is interviewed by Apiary and I'm honored to see Tom's praise of me as a mentor.

Fussell and Metcalf at Penn

Stephen Metcalf ponders the life and work - and long-form nonfiction - of Paul Fussell in Slate. The piece connects Steve's admiration of Fussell's writing to Steve's own feelings of, in some small way, following Fussell's footsteps in teaching at Penn. And so, in the end, he gets a chance to describe what he thinks an academic writer should be. Here's the final paragraph:

In my imagination (I never met him), Fussell had always been what an English professor should be: erudite, frank, worldly, unworldly, acerbic: library and cosmopolis unto himself. When, out of the blue, I was asked to adjunct a nonfiction writing class at Penn, I said yes, even though, as the crow flies, the gig made absolutely no sense. Every week I headed down to Philly on Amtrak, and every week I faced down the same revelation: that instead of the runnels of blood-strewn ditches, my prose is filled with pita chips, iced coffee, Facebook, and procrastination. Nonetheless, we front our losses as they come. I taught my class as honestly as I knew how; I loved my students; and every week, autumn falling over West Philly, I threw the black bag back over my shoulder, still blessedly heavier than itself, and the sum of its contents.

(Here is the course Steve Metcalf taught for us.)

filming for ModPo

 

Here's the ModPo team, filming discussions for the course I'll be teaching online for free starting on September 1. To register, go here.

Breakfast with Barth, 1977 interview

In January 1977, T&G magazine published an interview with John Barth (conducted partly over breakfast) about his years teaching and writing at Penn State. Here is a link to a PDF copy of that article.

NPR story features my free online poetry course

An NPR story last week covered, in part, my online modern and contemporary poetry course, which will be offered starting September 1, 2012, for ten weeks.

From Silicon Valley, A New Approach To Education


Link to NPR's "All Tech Considered" audio recording of the story.

LYNN NEARY, HOST: You may never have had a chance to attend an elite university, but now you can take some classes at one - online. Four major universities - Stanford, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan - are joining forces with a Silicon Valley start-up called Coursera. Together they plan to offer free online classes in more than three dozen subjects. NPR's Steve Henn reports the professors involved hope this kind of interactive online education could transform higher education.

STEVE HENN, BYLINE: Last year, when Andrew Ng, a computer science professor at Stanford, put his machine learning class up online and opened enrollment to the world, more than 100,000 students signed up.

ANDREW NG: I think all of us were surprised.

HENN: Andrew Ng had posted lectures online before, but this class was different.

AG: This was actually a class where you can participate as a student and get homework and assessments.

HENN: And get a grade. Not course credit but a grade. The class was interactive. There were quizzes and online forums, where teaching assistants, fellow students, and even Andrew himself answered questions. In the end, tens of thousands of students did all the same work and took all the same tests that Stanford students took. Thousands passed. Jim Plummer is the dean of engineering.

JIM PLUMMER: Stanford has always been a place where we were not afraid to try bold new things, often without knowing exactly what the consequences were going to be. And this is an instance of that, I think.

HENN: Now Andrew Ng and a Stanford colleague, Daphne Kohler, are launching a company called Coursera to bring classes from elite universities to students around the world for free, online.

DAPHNE KOHLER: Really by providing what is a truly high quality educational experience to so many students for free, I think we can really change many, many people's lives.

HENN: Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan will join Stanford. And two venture capitalists are investing more than $15 million dollars in the company. Kohler believes online classes could bring university education to millions of people who are now effectively cut off. But to do this, these classes have to be effective at teaching more than just computer science. How are they going to teach hundreds of thousands of students to write?

AL FILREIS: You've asked the right question, which is - you're really going to try to do a poetry course?

HENN: They are - and in fact Al Filreis is the guy they've roped in to doing just that.

FILREIS: Yeah.

HENN: Filreis is a poetry professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And starting next fall he'll be teaching Modern and Contemporary American Poetry, online for free. Now, he knows he's not going to be able to grade thousands of essays. But he wants people to think about the poems he's teaching and engage each other.

FILREIS: Poetry is really good in this setting because you can read it alone and get so much out of it, and be perfectly fine with it. The next step is hang out with some - just some intuitively smart people and collectively - together, collaboratively - lets read the poem together.

HENN: So what will a poetry class trying to engage thousands sound like? Filreis says it'll sound something like this.

FILREIS: Today we are going to be talking about a poem by Lin Dinh. It's called "Eating Fried Chicken." HENN: He's been hosting a poetry discussion podcast for years.

LIN DINH: I hate to admit this, brother, but there are times when I'm eating fried chicken, when I think about nothing else but eating fried chicken.

FILREIS: So who's the brother being addressed in the first line?

LEONARD SCHWARTZ: Huh, interesting, I thought of that as, you know, Philadelphia-speak, maybe African American vernacular...

FILREIS: It could be anyone or it could be an African-American brother. It could be a presumptuous address.

SUSAN SCHULTZ: I was thinking the same thing, especially...

HENN: In his class this fall, Filreis will discuss poetry with a small group of students while potentially thousands of others make comments online. And Coursera's building as system kind of like Yelp that will let those students value each other's comments. The most valued and respected will rise to the top. Filreis says he's excited to give this a try, and it's possible that this fall he could reach more students with poetry than he's done in his entire career. Steve Henn, NPR News, Silicon Valley.

with John Barth

in conversation with John Barth

a few responses to the "Coursera" consortium of universities making courses available to everyone for free

Penn to host 52,000 holocaust video testimonies

Penn to Host Access to Entire USC Shoah Foundation Institute Archive, Nearly 52,000 Video Testimonies of Holocaust Survivors, Witnesses

 PHILADELPHIA — The University of Pennsylvania has become the first university in Pennsylvania with access to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s entire Visual History Archive that contains nearly 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust in 32 languages and from 56 countries. Penn's partnership with the Shoah Foundation Institute is supported by the joint efforts of the Annenberg School for Communication, Penn Libraries and Penn’s Division of Information Systems and Computing. Penn President Amy Gutmann, who was moved by the Institute's work when she attended its Ambassadors for Humanity Gala here last year, is hosting a special event at 5 p.m., Monday, April 23, in the lobby of the Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut St., to officially launch access to the collection. 

The Ambassadors for Humanity Gala honored Brian L. Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation, and was chaired by Stephen A. Cozen, member of the Penn Law Board of Overseers, and Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen, chair of Penn's Board of Trustees. "This partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and USC's Shoah Foundation Institute provides an unparalleled resource for scholarly exploration across many disciplines, and I am proud we are able to offer the Philadelphia community access to the entire collection," said Gutmann. "I have seen and experienced first-hand the impact that these personal testimonies can have. They are a poignant reminder that we must stand together against hatred and intolerance of any kind." Gutmann’s father fled Nazi Germany in 1934, eventually emigrating to the United States, where she was born. "My father's journey has been one of the most important influences in my life, and I feel a strong personal connection to the value of these educational opportunities made available by the Shoah Foundation Institute." “Survivors’ memories are the authoritative source for information on the Holocaust, and the value of audiovisual testimony to other areas of research has been demonstrated at universities around the world where the Institute’s Visual History Archive has enhanced 275 academic courses in a wide range of disciplines,” Stephen D. Smith, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, said. “By partnering with the Institute to bring the Visual History Archive to Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania has demonstrated its commitment to scholarship guided by the highest humanitarian principles.” In addition to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute has gathered testimony from homosexual survivors, Jehovah’s Witness survivors, Roma and Sinti (Gypsy) survivors, survivors of eugenics policies, political prisoners, liberators and liberation witnesses, rescuers and aid providers and war crimes trial participants. The Institute has also begun to collect testimonies of survivors and witnesses of others genocides, such as those in Rwanda and Cambodia. The USC Shoah Foundation Institute was established in 1994 by film producer/director Steven Spielberg to collect and preserve these testimonies, and the Institute maintains one of the largest video digital libraries in the world. It has a long history in Philadelphia where its regional office was based and where the training of local residents as interviewers and videographers was coordinated. More than 600 testimonies were taken in Pennsylvania.  

About the USC Shoah Foundation Institute Established in 1994 by Steven Spielberg to collect and preserve the testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute maintains one of the largest video digital libraries in the world: nearly 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages and from 56 countries. The Institute is part of the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California; its mission is to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry —and the suffering they cause—through the educational use of the Institute’s visual history testimonies. The Institute works within the University and with partners around the world to advance scholarship and research, to provide resources and online tools for educators, and to disseminate the testimonies for educational purposes. In addition to preserving the testimonies in its archive, the Institute is working with partner organizations to expand the archive with accounts of survivors and witnesses of other genocides. For more information, visit the Institute’s website.

John Barth at Penn

LINK to article.

Modern poetry course on KYW/CBS Philly

Mike DeNardo of KYW/CBS Philly has published an article about my online modern and contemporary American poetry course being offered through the new Coursera consortium.

my free online course on modern & contemporary American poetry

Mike Wallace interviews Rod Serling, 1959