"A Coin," by Carl Sandburg

"Youth Isn't Wasted on the Youth," by Hans Ostrom

Youth's not wasted on the youth. They
seem to know just what to do with it.

Autumn, which they call Fall, generates
fine light that shines on the longest
hair most college women will have in
their lives; or the shortest. College men

have more friends now than they will
later, after work, ambition, and lore
deliver betrayal and failure.

Youth is interested in itself. Sure, it's
part echo, part narcissism. But it's also
bursting with sympathy and verve.
Eyes bright, smiles broad.

Young people know they know they're young
and would laugh big to be asked to think
otherwise. Old people over-think.

They whittle dry adages, and their shirts
look weird untucked: young, you can make
that look work. Young people

don't waste any time. Or they waste
a lot of time because of that luscious
youthful languor, which I kind of recall.
Anyway, it's early October, which is a country
for old men and every kind of people. Youth
is a team to cheer for; that's all.


hans ostrom

"After You Speak," by Edward Thomas

"Quietude of Minnows," by Hans Ostrom

Minnows, floating like flexible
galvanized nails, bunch their crowd
tightly in shadow, then disband
and dart. Clouds of starlings come
to mind. Quietude, sure, if only
I knew what that meant. I take it
to mean the opposite of noisetude,
so you can see I don't take it seriously.

For thoughts are imperialists and may
invade one another at any time. No reason,
then, to go out of your way to confuse
yourself and others. Or is there?

We need less reflection:
difficult to argue that. Of course
the sound of fighter-jets will intrude
noisetudinally (coordinates, please) and seem
to shake the surface of the lake
(to ask if there's been a goddamned mistake)
because we are at war again always, and the
joint-base is just down the road, right? In

other news, the Greed Opera is coming to town,
colleges have become pimps for loan-sharks,
Black folks remain under siege in some cities, decades
of that shit. And now somebody walks out from
the back of this poem carrying a gun,
a flashlight. I want to move but I can't. I

can sing, though, sort of, so I croakingly
melodize something about poets and minnows in their
schools, and I keep an eye on that gun,
and the Son of God is nowhere in sight.


hans ostrom 2014

"Chihuly Glass," by Hans Ostrom

Stuck to a steel frame, pieces
of former fluid seem to float
like tadpoles
like kelp globes
like lily pads
like figures in foam atop a German beer.

Lick them; they are lollipops.
Mock them; they are bugs.
Cheer them; they are art.
Laugh: they are funny shapes.

Orange yellow blue curls
and tails and blotches and blobs
brought out from fire,
confused dough, vibrant mud.

Dear Light: the glass-artist
likes to invite you in
for a cup of mad tea
because hey you came
all the way from the sun.



hans ostrom 2014
Dale Chihuly

"A Sort of Song," by William Carlos Williams

"American Poetry Managerial Decision," by Hans Ostrom

"And now out of the dugout strides the pitching coach, Cotton Mather. He signals for the closer, Emily Dickinson."

"That's right, Chuck, Manager Frederick Douglass has decided to remove starting pitcher Walt Whitman  and take his chances with the diminutive right-hander."

"Well, Juan, Walt had  very little control tonight, and his line-count was way up there. I think it's  good move, Juan."

"Me, too, Chuck. I mean, you have to like Whitman's swagger, the way he sings himself, but it's hard to argue with Douglass's move. Dickinson has been in these situations before!"

"You  bet, Juan--and here's Emily throwing her warm-up tosses to catcher Henry "The Hammer" James.  Her lines get there in a hurry, but she also has that uncanny ability to take a little something off the rhyme. She keeps the other team off-balance!"

hans ostrom 2014

"Of Rock and Roll," by Hans Ostrom

Straight-ahead, drive-it-through
rock n roll: sure, I understood it.
It was and is a loco-motive, a choo-choo train.
Noisy. Fun. I liked it.

R&B: well, to me
it seemed to be an octopus-shaped
alien ship covered in purple velvet,
wielding hammers, rolling out
blues in rhythms, landing here
to deliver the news about love
and work and sex and being
Black in Whiteville and being White
in Whiteville and desperately needing
the news. R&R never quite

did the same thing for me. It's probably
about more than taste or eras.
R&R, for all its value, seemed
like a filtration process; rhythm-and-
blues did not seem that. Seemed
a vast cultivation.


hans ostrom

"Recruiting More Students and Colleagues of Color at Liberal Arts Colleges: The Ten Essentials," by Hans Ostrom

(These are some remarks I'll give today for a panel on institutional change at the 3rd national Race and Pedagogy Conference, which is happening now where I teach, at the University of Puget Sound.  This successful conference is the brain-child of Professor Dexter Gordon, Director of African American Studies and the Race and Pedagogy Initiative,  and Professor Grace Livingston, who teaches in the program (as do I) and many, many collaborators.)

My main point of reference for this discussion is the University of Puget Sound, where I’ve taught for many years, but the discussion is really about the liberal arts college, as a model of higher education in general, and diversity, not about Puget Sound per se. 

I think that over the past decade and especially in recent years, the discussion about liberal arts colleges and diversity has shifted.  I’ve observed a change in the terms of the argument for diversity, from a kind of “it’s something we ought to do/it’s our obligation” to “it’s a matter of survival.”  In other words, the demographics have caught up with liberal arts colleges, which haven’t adjusted quickly enough.

So one organizing principle of my ten essentials, which I’ll distribute in a moment, is that a sense of obligation, progressive notions, public relations, and so on, aren’t enough to push the change that needs to occur.

A second organizing principle is that liberal arts colleges probably have to be more self-critical as they re-examine their assumptions, their ways of doing things, how they are perceived, and the rhetoric they use to describe themselves.  [refer to the Whitman example].

Third and last, I’d like to say that some good things came of the old model, which by and large sprang from a sense of noblesse oblige.  Real changes in co-curricular programs, curricula, defining academic and administrative positions, supporting conferences like this have occurred over the last few decades at many if not most liberal arts colleges. But that way of doing things has probably yielded all it can yield, so that now some long-delayed fundamental change must occur.  With that, . . . here is the list:

1.            Think of diversity as a necessity, not just  “a good thing.”

2.            The Board of Trustees/Regents (etc.) must regard diversity as a necessity.

3.            Find out who in the institution opposes diversity, and why, and be prepared to persuade them otherwise or move ahead without them.

4.            Find out what students and parents of color, colleagues of color, and the local community really think about your college and diversity.

5.            Spend the money.

6.            Consider the degree to which the college’s rhetoric about itself is exclusive or insular.

7.            Stop rejecting “vocation-speak”; employment after college should be of primary concern to liberal arts colleges, and it's connected to the concerns of all prospective college-students and it's of special concern arguably, to students from a variety of ethnic minorities.  (Recall that at least 5 of the original 7 liberal arts were what we might call vocational: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, and geometry, the other 2 being music and astronomy.)

8.            Achieve  a critical mass of students and colleagues of color ASAP.  What constitutes a critical mass? The students and colleagues of color, among others, will let you know. Until then, carry on.

9.            Find out in what venues and circumstances students and colleagues of color are most likely to be alienated and respond accordingly.

10.          What are you willing to change about the “liberal arts college” paradigm?

Hans Ostrom, Professor of African American Studies and English, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington USA

Some Sources:

[the list of the original 7 liberal arts can be found on numerous sites online]

“The Most Economically Diverse Liberal Arts Colleges,” The Upshot, New York Times, Sept. 8, 2014.

David Leonhardt, “Top Colleges That Enroll Rich, Middle Class, Poor,” New York Times,  Sept. 8, 2014.

Katherine McClelland and Carol J. Auster, “Public Platitudes and Hidden Tensions: Racial Climates at Predominantly White Liberal Arts Colleges,”  Journal of Higher Education Vol. 61, No. 6, Nov. - Dec., 1990. 607-642.

"He Is Not a Random Man," by Hans Ostrom

A headline mumbled to me,
"Random man pricked with syringe,
told 'Welcome to the HIV club.'"
He's going to be okay, the man,
because of immediate medical attention.

Except that a headline writer
tried to turn him into a random man.

He is not a random man. He is
the man he is, none other. He
may have been randomly pricked.
But random pricking does not

a random man make.


2014 hans ostrom

Samuel Johnson on Patronage

"Practice Safe Poetry," by Hans Ostrom

How well do you know
the words you're using in poems?
How many other poets have used them?
How many of those poets are infected?

Practice safe writing. Do you know
the proper way to put a condom
on your cursor--or someone else's?
How clean are your pens?

When reading poems in public,
consider wearing a helmet
and safety glasses.

Be aware of your surroundings.
Check for enforcers sent from
various Schools of Poetry. Never

get between an ambitious poet
and a prize or a high poetic office.

Get your poems tested!


hans ostrom 2014

"Chekhov's Pistol," by Hans Ostrom

In this play I play
the role of William Shakespeare,
who is inside one of his sonnets on stage.
"I" stand in the glass cube (the sonnet),
on the walls

of which the words from the sonnet
appear. "I" shout the words
in random order. "I" strike
the words, curse, and stomp.

Someone pretending to care
comes and lets me out of the
cube. "I" introduce myself
as Bill S., an actor-playwright.
"Hi, Bill!" everyone shouts.
The set shifts.

I'm pushed under a kitchen
table: yep, an American play.
I fall asleep and snore and am
kicked by actors who are
drawing on their experience,
expressing truth, blah blah.

The American playwright
is in the audience, and under
orders from his management,
he acts like he's drunk,
bellicose, and talented.

No longer "I," "I" get out
from under the table and "kill"
all the characters with
a Renaissance sword--
revenge and all that shit.

Now Chekhov comes on stage
with a pistol and shoots me dead.
Dude, it is very cool. The actor's
from Sweden.

hans ostrom 2014