Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Friday, September 8, 2017
Crow Travel
Just sitting outside in search of
fresh air, not looking for them:
a couple hundred crows
flying southeast across a chalk sky.
Were they coming from the famous
crow compound and annual banquet
on Whidbey Island? Hell, I
didn't know. Crows don't
fly in formation, not like those
fascist geese. In fact, they looked
like they'd been in a weed cafe
in Amsterdam or something--
just kind of flap-sauntering.
They flew in two groups.
Between the intervals, a solitary
crow flew from the same
direction, landed on a tree,
and got loud, as if to say,
"I didn't want to go with y'all
anyway!" Borderline personality.
I don't think it was migration.
More like they were off to
an academic crow conference
or a big wedding. Crows
just look like they have a better
handle on this reality thing.
They're not all out of control
and self-destructive like us.
hans ostrom 2017
fresh air, not looking for them:
a couple hundred crows
flying southeast across a chalk sky.
Were they coming from the famous
crow compound and annual banquet
on Whidbey Island? Hell, I
didn't know. Crows don't
fly in formation, not like those
fascist geese. In fact, they looked
like they'd been in a weed cafe
in Amsterdam or something--
just kind of flap-sauntering.
They flew in two groups.
Between the intervals, a solitary
crow flew from the same
direction, landed on a tree,
and got loud, as if to say,
"I didn't want to go with y'all
anyway!" Borderline personality.
I don't think it was migration.
More like they were off to
an academic crow conference
or a big wedding. Crows
just look like they have a better
handle on this reality thing.
They're not all out of control
and self-destructive like us.
hans ostrom 2017
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Velton's Testimony
Judge (said Velton), I submit
that yellow Lombardy poplar
leaves staggering down the breeze
from the trees recall butterflies:
that peculiar aerodynamic
jaggedry. May it please the court,
such impressionistic reports
on natural scenes are worthless
and thus desirable in any age
of frenzied valuation, addictive
greed, and amphetamined commerce.
hans ostrom 2017
that yellow Lombardy poplar
leaves staggering down the breeze
from the trees recall butterflies:
that peculiar aerodynamic
jaggedry. May it please the court,
such impressionistic reports
on natural scenes are worthless
and thus desirable in any age
of frenzied valuation, addictive
greed, and amphetamined commerce.
hans ostrom 2017
Velton Stopped Cheering
Velton stopped cheering
at football games and football
matches when he realized
that no one could hear him
above the noise.
hans ostrom 2017
at football games and football
matches when he realized
that no one could hear him
above the noise.
hans ostrom 2017
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
This Fall, White Supremacy Blooms
The forests are ablaze, the sun is red,
and a light snow of ash falls. White
Supremacy blooms again, giving off
its acrid odor, its menacing stench.
More than a few White college
students fully feel the old power
their forebears wielded like a scythe.
In front of Black professors (where
there are any), they yawn, stretch,
roll eyes, pick matter from their hair,
their eyes, their ears. They savor
the insolence of re-authorization.
They get drunk and yell, "I am
the One Per Cent!" and offer
other triumphalist biscuits
to the air, which they own.
Not that they ever
were going to change, but
now any pressure to know or care,
to arise from racist sloth,
has dissipated like the particles
from scorched trees.
An old White bloated Hitler
knockoff at the American helm
massages the radioactive core
of the country and his Party,
Dixiecrats in drag. So White
students are as free as ever
to treat learning as a running
joke, to swagger, to luxuriate
in the shade of official hatred
behind the citadel walls. Its their
choice. It's always been their choice.
hans ostrom 2017
and a light snow of ash falls. White
Supremacy blooms again, giving off
its acrid odor, its menacing stench.
More than a few White college
students fully feel the old power
their forebears wielded like a scythe.
In front of Black professors (where
there are any), they yawn, stretch,
roll eyes, pick matter from their hair,
their eyes, their ears. They savor
the insolence of re-authorization.
They get drunk and yell, "I am
the One Per Cent!" and offer
other triumphalist biscuits
to the air, which they own.
Not that they ever
were going to change, but
now any pressure to know or care,
to arise from racist sloth,
has dissipated like the particles
from scorched trees.
An old White bloated Hitler
knockoff at the American helm
massages the radioactive core
of the country and his Party,
Dixiecrats in drag. So White
students are as free as ever
to treat learning as a running
joke, to swagger, to luxuriate
in the shade of official hatred
behind the citadel walls. Its their
choice. It's always been their choice.
hans ostrom 2017
Monday, September 4, 2017
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Saturday, September 2, 2017
Ceremonial Headdress
I wore a ceremonial headdress
of my own design
to the party. No one else
wore one--and, truly,
I wasn't sure how many
of them were worthy of such
a noble item of clothing.
Anyway, let's just say
their definition of
"casual attire" differs
substantially from mine.
Good day to you.
hans ostrom 2017
of my own design
to the party. No one else
wore one--and, truly,
I wasn't sure how many
of them were worthy of such
a noble item of clothing.
Anyway, let's just say
their definition of
"casual attire" differs
substantially from mine.
Good day to you.
hans ostrom 2017
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Kildeer
("The flight of the Kildeer is strong and rapid, and is at times protracted to a great distance. It skims quite low over the ground, or plays at a great height in the air, particularly during the love season, when you may see these birds performing all sorts of evolutions on wing." audobon.org)
Kildeers, about the size of flickers,
screamed across the pasture, summers.
Their shrieks were very fine, accomplished,
their low, straight routes efficient.
Thank God I didn't try to make them
symbolize or teach: what a bore,
a lugubrious Wordsworthian chore.
No. Just the kildeers, fast fliers,
loud criers, going fast from copse
of oaks to stand of pines.
hans ostrom 2017
Kildeers, about the size of flickers,
screamed across the pasture, summers.
Their shrieks were very fine, accomplished,
their low, straight routes efficient.
Thank God I didn't try to make them
symbolize or teach: what a bore,
a lugubrious Wordsworthian chore.
No. Just the kildeers, fast fliers,
loud criers, going fast from copse
of oaks to stand of pines.
hans ostrom 2017
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Friday, August 25, 2017
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Monday, August 21, 2017
America, Here's the Package
Here's the package: the hair looks
like a collapsed straw pompadour,
the skin like faded naugahyde. The
vocabulary goes zero to sixty and
stops, the attention span the same
in seconds. He can't even fake
empathy. Is delighted to be ignorant
of history, science, economics, politics,
music, art, psychology, law, philosophy.
The White Supremacist road begins
and ends in an abyss of willful ignorance.
It's as if he played Monopoly instead
of learning even the most basic of
human things. He's witless, petty,
dull, and unctuous Couldn't plan a sneeze
after inhaling pepper. Shouldn't
even be president of his local
hate group. Consider how many
White folks still think he's all
right, and that will tell you where we are.
hans ostrom 2017
like a collapsed straw pompadour,
the skin like faded naugahyde. The
vocabulary goes zero to sixty and
stops, the attention span the same
in seconds. He can't even fake
empathy. Is delighted to be ignorant
of history, science, economics, politics,
music, art, psychology, law, philosophy.
The White Supremacist road begins
and ends in an abyss of willful ignorance.
It's as if he played Monopoly instead
of learning even the most basic of
human things. He's witless, petty,
dull, and unctuous Couldn't plan a sneeze
after inhaling pepper. Shouldn't
even be president of his local
hate group. Consider how many
White folks still think he's all
right, and that will tell you where we are.
hans ostrom 2017
Phone Nightspot
Weird night: went to this small
dark bistro, got inside--no one there
but a bartender texting on her phone.
The tables were empty except
for mobile phones, some propped,
some lying flat, two or three or
four per table. One table had just
one phone--sad. I put my phone
on that table so the two could
get to know each other. Went
to the bar, ordered a bourbon,
and said to the woman,
"Start a tab, please, and I'm
buying a round for them all."
Her look soured. The phones
started to buzz, ring, sing,
jangle, and melodize. I said,
"Cheers," and lifted my glass.
hans ostrom 2017
dark bistro, got inside--no one there
but a bartender texting on her phone.
The tables were empty except
for mobile phones, some propped,
some lying flat, two or three or
four per table. One table had just
one phone--sad. I put my phone
on that table so the two could
get to know each other. Went
to the bar, ordered a bourbon,
and said to the woman,
"Start a tab, please, and I'm
buying a round for them all."
Her look soured. The phones
started to buzz, ring, sing,
jangle, and melodize. I said,
"Cheers," and lifted my glass.
hans ostrom 2017
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Friday, August 18, 2017
White Supremacy and the Liberal Arts
There’s no question that the liberal arts college, the prestige model of American higher education, has been inherently reactionary and even White Supremacist. For it has rooted itself in a meta-narrative in which the most prized knowledge in the U.S., filtered through Europe, is a bleached package from Greece and Rome. Linguistically and otherwise, of course, there are legitimate reasons to trace legacies from these two empires. Problems arise when the influence of Africa, Arabia, and Asia gets deliberately ignored. Invasions, migrations, and the nature of these empires itself make the lines from Athens and Rome to Europe and the U.S. very messy, but that is not how the Classics, etc., get taught. Further, the original 7 liberal arts were much plainer, pragmatic, and career-oriented than what the American version has become. (A good read is Rebecca Futo Kennedy’s essay, “We Condone It By Our Silence: Confronting Classics’ Complicity in White Supremacy,” Eedolon: https://eidolon.pub/we-condone-it-by-our-silence-bea76fb59b21.)
True, critiques of Whiteness, colonialism, White Supremacy, the politics, culture, and terrorism of slavery, etc., do get expressed at liberal arts colleges. But they remain on the frothy surface of what goes on. Institutionally, ethically, and psychically, the colleges remain bastions of Whiteness.
One factor that contributes to the impervious character of the colleges is that they depend economically on middle-class and upper-class White families. If the latter didn’t exist, neither would the colleges, which are worried now that the demographics are shifting, but which seem incapable of acting on the worry. The liberal arts colleges that are most successful at recruiting and retaining students of color have, for example, percentages of Black students in the low single digits. The rest have percentages that hover around or below 1%–in 2017, coming up on 400 years since Africans were forced into slavery on these shores. The demographics alone of the faculty, student body, and upper level staff mean that White Supremacy gets baked into everyday life on a liberal arts campus.
Given the percentages, it doesn’t require much imagination to envisage what life is like for Black students on these campuses. Daily micro- and macro-aggressions. The extra duty to serve to educate White students, faculty, and staff who, at best, express their liberalism by being “interested” in “what it’s like” to be Black, and who at worst discriminate, ignore, dismiss, and belittle.
Further, these colleges–in spite of the image of broad-mindedness they project–are bastions for faculty who deploy the propaganda of “political correctness. –And who deploy the weird logic that diversity must equal lower standards, when in fact some of the most academically incompetent students are White ones whose family wealth has paved an easy road. The colleges also tend to attract faculty who are White and middle class and ruling class and who bring the same ignorance and prejudice to their teaching as any White American would.
So, at a liberal arts college, it is likely that one might hear from faculty and staff such utterances as the following, and I’m not kidding:
“Why don’t they [Black students] just go to historically Black colleges?”
‘”It’s White, conservative Christians who are most discriminated against around here.”
“If they [students of color] don’t like it here, they’re free to leave.”
“I’m sick of diversity.”
“I’m much more interested in the declining percentage of White males in higher education.”
“I don’t like hiring African American colleagues because they arrive with presumptive tenure.”
And so on. And such comments are made from a position of safety, and they’re made by faculty of stature, not as one might think by the notorious cranks in the faculty, although they make them too.
It’s still common for liberal arts faculty to make the “native informant” move, whereby, when a question related to African American history or culture comes up in class, the professor turns to the one Black student in class (or allows a White student to do the same) and asks the Black student to become a spokesperson for an entire ethnicity.
Faculty of color, especially Black faculty, have a hell of a time, too. White faculty will compliment them on being “so articulate,” or just simply act weird around them. Black faculty must often take on the invisible burden of counseling Black students about how to survive at the college. This requires added hours and emotional/intellectual energy. It’s like sailing into a stiff headwind.
The scale of liberal arts colleges can make teaching and learning more effective. For the most part, professors, not adjunct faculty, teach the classes. This is not necessarily an improvement, but at least the pay is fair and the professors are bit more invested in the place. But in spite of the cosmopolitan self-presentations of these colleges, they tend to be insular, figuratively incestuous, and provincial. Greek systems, inherently reactionary, traditionally racist and misogynist, only reinforce these qualities.
The identities of liberal arts colleges usually depend on illusions of “tradition,” and “tradition” and various kinds of safety and care figure heavily into liberal arts marketing. And of course we know how tradition and “safety” can be translated into White Supremacist practices. For example, Black students at liberal arts colleges routinely get followed or accosted by “Security” for no reason than that they are Black. It is a problem that is both chronic and acute.
In spite of highly promoted and self-congratulatory “diversity” efforts involving modest changes to curricula and programming and lots of noise about a welcoming, tolerant community, most liberal arts colleges have hardly made a dent in their Boards of Trustees (often composed of White wealthy alums), faculties, and administrations. They tend, strategically, to silence straight-from-the-shoulder critiques of the White status quo by pointing to modest, even token, changes. White faculty, staff, and students often go directly to playing the victim, complaining that they mean well, aren’t racists, and have done a lot, so why are you being so ungrateful? You know that move as well as I do.
As with the nation itself, I don’t see any serious changes ahead for most liberal arts colleges when it comes to examining their White Supremacist character, assumptions, and practices. The self-interrogation, discipline, patience, and strength required just isn’t there, and there are simply too many rewards, many of them monetary, for staying the same. And, culturally, there is just too much invested in the mirage of “the small liberal arts college”; this powerful illusion is part of the White Supremacist “American Dream” that Ta-Nehisi Coates describes and analyzes in Between the World and Me. Arguably, American liberal arts colleges contribute as much to the White Supremacist status quo as does the Republican Party, with its dog-whistles and Southern Strategy, its fake textbooks (in which, for a Texas example, African slaves are referred to as “immigrants), its mask of Christian piety, and so on. Most of these colleges have endowments large enough to stay White forever, so they will.
Further reading:
“How White Supremacy Lifts Liberal Whites,” by Gail Cornwall. http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-white-supremacy-lifts-liberal-whites-10812043.php
“Top-Ranked Liberal Arts College is Calling for Its President to Address Its ‘Legacy of White Supremacy,'” by Abby Jackson.http://www.businessinsider.com/amherst-college-protest-against-legacy-of-white-supremacy-on-campus-2015-11
“For Christ and His White Kingdom–An open Letter to the Wheaton College Community on White Supremacy,” https://thetatteredrose.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/for-christ-and-his-white-kingdom-an-open-letter-to-the-wheaton-college-community-on-white-supremacy-on-campus/
“Diversity in This Progressive Cycle: Where Are We? An Issue Too Close to Us–We Cannot [sic] Possibly Ignore It,” by Luke Carberry Mogan. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/diversity-in-this-progressive-cycle-where-are-we
“Bates + Who? An Open Letter to the Bates College Faculty.” http://www.thebatesstudent.com/2017/05/bateswho-an-open-letter-to-the-faculty-of-bates-college/
“White People Are Amazed that a White Woman Was Treated Like a White Woman,” Michael Harriot, The Root. http://www.theroot.com/white-people-are-amazed-that-a-white-woman-was-treated-1795272316
“Race and Racism at Colorado College: Revealing Micro-Aggressions and Institutional Negligence,” by Han Sayles, http://www.ciphermagazine.com/articles/2017/1/12/race-and-racism-at-colorado-college
“De-Segregating International Relations: A Conversation with Robert Vitalis on ‘White World Order, Black Power Politics,” http://toynbeeprize.org/conversations/de-segregating-international-relations-a-conversation-with-robert-vitalis-on-white-world-order-black-power-politics/
“The Case of the University of Puget Sound Three,” by Clifford Cawthon. https://southseattleemerald.com/2017/01/03/the-case-of-the-university-of-puget-sound-three/
What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and ‘Bias’ in Higher Education, by Michael Bérubé, W.W. Norton, 2007.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Monday, August 14, 2017
The Moon in Those Wild Magma Years
("The Moon May Have Had a Heavy Metal Atmosphere with Supersonic Winds,"
by Lisa Grossman, Science News, June 2017)
We thought we knew the moon:
pale and cool, the hard-working
servant of love, myth, tides,
Americans, and a genre called horror.
Turns out in its youth, the moon
was a crazy ball of magma, so hot
it vaporized metal and forged
an atmosphere, which brought
winds so blastful they made
waves in magma. (Surf this, bro.)
Finally this heat-addicted sphere
went straight, got clean, dried
out. It slept it off under blankets
of sodium snow. When it awoke, it
had pock-marks. With chill indifference
it received cordial light from the sun.
hans ostrom 2017
by Lisa Grossman, Science News, June 2017)
We thought we knew the moon:
pale and cool, the hard-working
servant of love, myth, tides,
Americans, and a genre called horror.
Turns out in its youth, the moon
was a crazy ball of magma, so hot
it vaporized metal and forged
an atmosphere, which brought
winds so blastful they made
waves in magma. (Surf this, bro.)
Finally this heat-addicted sphere
went straight, got clean, dried
out. It slept it off under blankets
of sodium snow. When it awoke, it
had pock-marks. With chill indifference
it received cordial light from the sun.
hans ostrom 2017
Cooling Crow
This city's hot and smoky: fires
in British Columbia, climate change.
My acquaintances the crows are
suffering. I daily provide them
food, water, and a target for their ire
(me). Today though they're really hurting.
On a wire, one of them looks
straight up at sky and opens
his mouth. The bifurcated beak
looks like an enormous black
clothespin. This is the posture
of crow prayer. God will listen.
God made crow. (Don't tell crow!)
This is the posture of a performed
aria in a silent crow opera. This
is crow cooling off. ( You knew
it would be dramatic.) This is rare
crow, too hot to caw complaints.
hans ostrom 2017
in British Columbia, climate change.
My acquaintances the crows are
suffering. I daily provide them
food, water, and a target for their ire
(me). Today though they're really hurting.
On a wire, one of them looks
straight up at sky and opens
his mouth. The bifurcated beak
looks like an enormous black
clothespin. This is the posture
of crow prayer. God will listen.
God made crow. (Don't tell crow!)
This is the posture of a performed
aria in a silent crow opera. This
is crow cooling off. ( You knew
it would be dramatic.) This is rare
crow, too hot to caw complaints.
hans ostrom 2017
Oyster Shells
(near Hoodsport, Washington)
Otters, people, and seabirds covet
the plump valved purse
inside the casing, so every tide
leaves a pale gray rubble
of pillaged oyster shells,
which look like shards
of cloud that fell and
hardened. Exterior:
rough sculpted, abstract,
ruffled at the edges
like concrete lace.
Some shells still embrace
a stone, creating a tactile
drama of inanimate passion.
It might remind us
that nature's an agony.
Oyster shells seem to ask
to be rescued and given value
in an economy. We pick some
up and carry them around a
while. They're fascinating
and worthless.
hans ostrom 2017
Otters, people, and seabirds covet
the plump valved purse
inside the casing, so every tide
leaves a pale gray rubble
of pillaged oyster shells,
which look like shards
of cloud that fell and
hardened. Exterior:
rough sculpted, abstract,
ruffled at the edges
like concrete lace.
Some shells still embrace
a stone, creating a tactile
drama of inanimate passion.
It might remind us
that nature's an agony.
Oyster shells seem to ask
to be rescued and given value
in an economy. We pick some
up and carry them around a
while. They're fascinating
and worthless.
hans ostrom 2017
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Monday, August 7, 2017
Christ Based Cleaning
A sign on the side
of a white van
said, CHRIST BASED
CLEANING. Excellent.
Gets a person hoping
for miracles mixed
with mopping and sweeping
and for a higher
minimum wage; for
speaking the truth
to local imperial thugs--
maybe after work?
This is just me, but
I wouldn't want evil
spirits cast into pets
that then sprint demonically
off a cliff. No. Throw
those bad seeds out
with the trash. Recycle
them for bloated politicians
to use ineptly. Oh,
Christ, more than a
billion times, y'all must
have thought, "What will
they think of next?"
hans ostrom 2017
of a white van
said, CHRIST BASED
CLEANING. Excellent.
Gets a person hoping
for miracles mixed
with mopping and sweeping
and for a higher
minimum wage; for
speaking the truth
to local imperial thugs--
maybe after work?
This is just me, but
I wouldn't want evil
spirits cast into pets
that then sprint demonically
off a cliff. No. Throw
those bad seeds out
with the trash. Recycle
them for bloated politicians
to use ineptly. Oh,
Christ, more than a
billion times, y'all must
have thought, "What will
they think of next?"
hans ostrom 2017
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)