Author: admin

When I was in college I would have dreams, from time to time, in which I would show up at class only to find that we were taking a test, and that I had no idea about the subject. I would receive my test booklet, the hour would start, and everyone would get to work — except for me, because I was completely unprepared.

Shortly after I got my Ph.D., I found myself teaching at NYU. Now I was on the other side — not the one taking the tests, but the one giving them. I was, as they say, the one in power.

Yet the dreams continued. Only this time I would show up to give a lecture, only to find that I was completely unprepared, and had no idea what to lecture about. A sea of expectant student faces would stare out at me, and I would have not a clue what to do or say.

Thinking back on all this, what fascinates me is that these are essentially the same dream. The only difference between them is in the societal role that I am playing. In every other way, they are the same.

What continues to surprise me — I’m not sure why it surprises me, but it does — is that my dream self would bother to make such a fine distinction between “student” and “teacher”. After all, you would think that the terrified three year old in my soul would not care about such petty details.

Yet evidently he does.

The last eight days I have been posting haiku, in a series that made its way through the alphabet from A to Z.

Each haiku in the series was a definition (more or less) of a word that started with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. And some days contained more haiku than others.

What I’ve really been doing is tracing out a shape. I actually started with this shape in mind, and then decided to paint it — piece by piece — with haiku, over the course of eight successive days:

This project has been, you might say, a form of Oulipo.

Oddly enough, I was at a party last night in which quite a bit of conversation centered around the relationship between poetry and Oulipo. I didn’t talk about my project, because it wasn’t finished yet.

Or maybe that wasn’t so odd. Words are strange creatures. The things we say, seemingly in the moment, can often turn out to be part of larger shapes that are revealed only later.

zen is understood
only when you realize
that it is not zen

nearly, but not quite
myself. even if you are
the one reading this.

(why)

the question that comes
after ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘where’, and
before ‘how could you?’

(xenophobia)

a fear that makes you
do things that increase someone’s
xenophobia

(secrets)

what i don’t tell you,
which is how you can be sure
i’ll always trust you

(truth)

what no one else sees
no matter how patiently
you enlighten them

(unbeliever)

someone who rejects
any idea that’s sacred
enough to kill for

(verb)

a noun that betrays
its fellow nouns by working
for the other side

(never)

the number of times
each moment comes again in
the rest of your life

(one)

how many true loves
we know will last forever
(on a given day)

(possibly)

a straw that we clutch
in one hand, when the other
finds itself empty

(quiet)

what we get, when we
realize that we have lost
everything else

(real)

our favorite word
to describe the quality
of a fantasy

(innocent)

you, before you knew
what you wish you did not know,
now that you know it

(jellyfish)

such a beautiful
bright colorful way to stop
enjoying the sea

(kindness)

what we notice most
when we don’t get it, and least
when we don’t give it

(love)

the thing we want most
is the thing, strangely enough,
we least understand

(mine)

the saddest of words,
bringer of wars, destroyer.
see also: yours, ours

(experience)

what teaches us to
recognize our mistakes the
next time we make them

(fun)

it is what you have
when you’re not thinking at all
about what you have

(god)

a way to avoid
responsibility for
choosing to be good

(human)

our name for any
living creature in which we
recognize ourselves

(chance)

what you make happen
when you’re not aware you are
making things happen

(desire)

wanting it even
more, precisely because you
don’t want to want it