Portfolio
Course Description
In Fall 2017 I designed and taught a college-level essay writing course looking at writing through the lens of music. Here is a sample of this text:
“Writing is often about telling a story, focusing in on moments of time and examining a number of things that happen to come together at a certain place and time. We see writing and text everywhere – we are constantly receiving messages of one kind or another. Another form of communication we are constantly in contact with is sound, or more specifically, music. No matter who you are or where you’re from, everyone listens to music or can identify with a song or musical genre, tradition, or history. How many times has a song you’ve heard on the radio, in a grocery store, at a friend’s house, and other places has reminded you of a specific memory infused with emotion? What music reminds you of home? What music reminds you of friendships, relationships, family?
Even the absence of sound or music can be significant. For example, consider the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827), a classical composer from Germany. Beethoven was a practicing musician and composer for his entire life, but as he aged, he began to lose his hearing. Beethoven began to lose his hearing at age 26, in 1796. By age 46 in 1816 he was entirely deaf. However, he still composed music. He famously cut the legs off of his piano in order to put the body of the instrument directly on the floor. By doing this, he could feel the vibrations of the strings inside the piano through the floorboards. Beethoven was entirely deaf, however, his compositions remain some of the most widely heard and performed pieces of classical music of all time.
During this course, we will be listening to different kinds of music from all over the world and many different traditions, music created and performed for a number of purposes and in many different contexts. We will use the fabric of music to talk and write about context even further and to participate in community and individual writing assignments. We will hopefully have guest speaker(s) who will talk about how specific styles of music have shaped their lives. I also hope that we will attend at least one musical performance during the semester. In addition to listening to various styles of music, we will watch short documentaries and clips about musicians and the presence of music in various cultures. I will also be performing for you and speaking about the physics and practice of playing the violin.
So how does all of this relate to writing? Just as writing is a community activity where we share ideas, offer suggestions, and read and write together, music is also a community activity. We will be using music and sound as a vehicle through which to gain experience writing and hone our writing, editing, researching, peer-reviewing, and revising skills.”
Examining Unorthodox Texts
In my writing pedagogy, I ask students to consider how we communicate with each other, and what and where in our world we communicate with each other. What can be “read” or observed, understood? How do we interpret messages about the world around us? What is a text? Students are usually wildly split on what defines a text. Some change their definitions three or four times throughout the course of a class. Here is an example of original content in which I ask students to consider various possible texts and determine what they are communicating, how they know this, and whether or not they are “texts”.
“Examining Five Unorthodox Texts
College Writing 112
Margaret Foley
Here are a few unorthodox texts that I want you to observe, examine, and analyze. I want you to write down your responses to these texts, and find out information about the texts, the contexts in which the texts were made and disseminated, and their creators/writers.
Write a thorough short statement in response to each text responding to the following questions: In what contexts might these texts have been created? For what purposes? Who are the audiences for each text? What style is it in? What choices did the author/creator/writer make? Why? What are possible perceptions of the text? How reliable is the text from information presented in the text or where it is found? How do you know?
TEXT ONE
TINY PRICKS PROJECT https://linguafranca.nyc/collections/tiny-pricks-project, https://www.instagram.com/tinypricksproject/?hl=en
TEXT TWO
VIDEO OF VIOLIST RESPONDING TO CELL PHONE RING https://youtu.be/uub0z8wJfhU
TEXT THREE
NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ABOUT BSTROY SCHOOL SHOOTING SWEATSHIRTS https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/style/school-shooting-hoodie-sweatshirt.html, https://www.instagram.com/bstroy.us/
TEXT FOUR
FIRST PARAGRAPH FROM CLARICE LISPECTOR’S “THE EGG AND THE CHICKEN”:
“In the morning the egg is lying on the kitchen table.
I see the egg at a single glance. I immediately perceive that I cannot be simply seeing an egg. Seeing an egg is always in the present: No sooner do I see the egg than I have seen an egg, the same egg which has existed for three thousand years. The very instant an egg is seen, it becomes the memory of an egg. The only person to see an egg is someone who has seen it before. Like a man who, in order to understand the present, must have had a past. Upon seeing the egg, it is already too late: an egg seen is an egg lost. A vision that passes Iike a sudden flash of lightning. To see the egg is the promise of being able to see the egg again one day. A brief glance which cannot be divided. Does thought intervene? No, there is no thought: there is only the egg. Vision is the essential faculty and, once used, I shall cast it aside. I shall remain without the egg. The egg has no self. Individually, it does not exist.”
TEXT FIVE
BANKSY’S GDP DYSTOPIAN HOMEWARES STORE, COLOSSAL ARTICLE ABOUT GDP DYSTOPIAN HOMEWARES STORE https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/10/gross-domestic-product/
Grief Nonfiction
An excerpt from a memoir I’m working on about the death of my late partner.
“Orpheum
The only times when I can hear your voice is when I am about to fall asleep or just waking up from a nap. When I’m in the twilight.
How falling asleep used to go: You ask me if you can make me a cup of coffee. I say yes. Two hours go by. I wake up to find you asleep. I wake up to find the coffee you made me sitting next to me. I know you must have tried to wake me. I wake up to find your arm laying on my hip. I wake up to find you. When you wake up, you tell me I cried in the night. I yelled in my sleep. I moved around, I was afraid. You were afraid for me. You calmed me down. I had another nightmare again. You woke me up. I don’t remember it. Wake me up.
I hear your voice on one six-second video, the only video I have of you from our time together. You were so shy. Here, you are laughing. Your laugh is goofy, a brook, a gift. You ask if I’m taking video. I tell you I’m not. You say, yes you are. You are smiling. If I stop the video in just the right place, I can stop it where I can see you smiling. You are smiling at me. And since I have just seen you moving on a screen, it’s as if maybe you are on video in some other place. You are on video in my kitchen and I must be elsewhere and we are talking through the phone on video and I’ve just managed to pause you in place. You are alive and I can keep you that way for a couple seconds. I can see your face and you are looking at me. I can keep you alive.
I don’t have to start here. I could start anywhere. Wherever I start, you’re still gone. I could make a list of our jokes, I could try to recall moments from soft light, when everything moved but we stayed put. I could make a list of the ways I knew your body, three freckles near your bottom rib next to your stomach. A triangle. The grey in your hair, at your temples. The automatic toss of your head to the right, to get the hair out of your eyes. Your hands, here, in my hands. Your habits I would now trade my senses for if just to find with me again. Leaving your shoes next to the bed. Ironing your scrubs before work. Making me coffee when you woke up first. Calling me Margaret.
I could start at the phone call, an unknown number from the town where you lived, the detective asking me who I am, who I am to you, sighing, saying, “I hate to do this over the phone.” I could start when I stopped screaming as often. I could start before I saw your body in your coffin. When I didn’t believe it, I hadn’t seen you. Everyone had to be wrong. I could start at any of the million scenarios in my mind of the many ways you could have died, the theories I had, scenarios both possible and fantastically impossible. I could start on the last day I did not know how you died.
Sometimes when I doze off I forget you’re dead. I think I hear you in the kitchen washing dishes or playing piano in the office. I think I hear my phone vibrate, think for a moment you must be calling me after work. That it’s all an elaborate joke. That I’ve just lost my mind, that’s all. Lost my mind, instead of having lost you.
I doze off. I wake up. You are still dead.
I can hear your voice on your albums and recordings. I don’t like the songs about drinking and drugs. It makes me feel responsible. It makes me wonder why I didn’t do something better. Why I couldn’t change it.
I like to hear you sing Groovy Woman and Suzi. I imagine you’re singing them to me, though we hadn’t met yet. Your friend Ben said you found your Suzi. He meant me. He stood in front of your body in your coffin in a room of everyone who loved you and told them all that you had found me. Len says you died happy. I do like to think that when you wrote those songs, you were hoping some day to find me. It was an avalanche, a waterfall of person after person telling me how much you loved me. It helped, and it hurt.
I like to listen to your music, right now I can only listen to you singing and I pick out the bass lines while I’m ambulatory. Usually driving. I still get sick when I put your music on. Groovy little woman, knockin’ me dead.”
Auto Dealer Client Content
Following is an excerpt of content I edited for an auto dealership client:
“Chicago Citizens Trust in Larry Roesch VW Service
Chicago drivers looking for reliable and thorough automotive service will find the cream of the crop at Larry Roesch VW Service. A certified VW service provider, we offer top-of-the-line quality service at our state of the art facilities. At Larry Roesch VW, we want to help you protect your investment. Our Volkswagen certified technicians offer the best service for Chicago VW drivers. Nobody can take care of your care like Larry Roesch VW!
The fastest way to find us from Chicago is to:
I-290W
Take exit 12
Continue on N York St. Drive to Grand Ave
We’ll be on your right, near Fischer Woods Co Forest Preserve
Maintenance Care Packages to Fit Your Needs
Our maintenance care appointments are more than just an oil change or a brake replacement. We offer several Volkswagen Care packages featuring pre-scheduled maintenance appointments. Our Volkswagen Care packages vary. Our basic package features service appointments every 2 years or at 20,000 miles, or every 3 years or at 30,000 miles (whichever occurs first). Volkswagen Plus covers the 40,000 and 50,000 mile manufacturer-recommended schedule care maintenance. By purchasing a Volkswagen Care package, you will save money over time – because even if service or parts costs increase, your pre-paid, pre-scheduled maintenance costs won’t!”
jubilat/Jones Introduction for poet Kiki Petrosino, April 2018
An original text I wrote to introduce the poet Kiki Petrosino (the first paragraph is a biography provided by the writer).
“Kiki Petrosino is the author of three books of poetry: Witch Wife (2017), Hymn for the Black Terrific (2013) and Fort Red Border (2009), all from Sarabande Books. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, The Nation, The New York Times, FENCE, Gulf Coast, jubilat, Tin House and on-line at Ploughshares. She is founder and co-editor of Transom, an independent on-line poetry journal. She is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Louisville, where she directs the Creative Writing Program. She also teaches part-time in the brief-residency MFA program at Spalding University. Her awards include a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat and research fellowships from the University of Louisville's Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
It’s likely that after reading Kiki Petrosino’s work, you find yourself in several places: inhabiting your body, and also hovering in the misty ether of time, that seems to be both solid and gas, real and unreal, here and there. You might also be across an ocean, or many years ago, or in your last breakup, or in possible future parenthood, or questioning beautiful birds about their behavior, or all of these things together. After reading Kiki Petrosino’s work, you might find that travelling is just a matter of looking over there.
Petrosino’s newest book, Witch Wife, places you in the infinite.
Witch Wife takes place inside of the body, inside of a body or bodies, bodies whose inhabitants are thinking about more bodies, inside of the black body, inside of the female body, inside of the child’s body, inside of the sick body, inside of a teenage body, inside of a body inside around things, inside the almost body, inside a European body, inside of the ancestral body, within bodies of time.
Influences in Witch Wife include Anne Sexton, William Blake, Italy, the United States, United States history, family, women, mothers, matrilineal lines, names, being in society, the question of what to do if we are in society, place, biology, time, purpose, birds of paradise, Thomas Jefferson and Monticello, lines from Martin Luther King Jr. and John Wilkes Booth, seeds and rain and pills and bellies and ghosts and months and “hiccuping buds.”
If this seems overwhelming, know that this book and Petrosino’s work requires multiple readings: it is so lush, it is entire worlds.
Within these lush worlds, there’s a consistent wondering, an insistent comedy and tragedy in repetitive questioning, a natural discomfort: as Petrosino says in “Pastoral,” “O animal life - / in a city of gardens & muck, you can start / to itch.”
Many of the poems, while set in modernity, such as the jean-clad exes who pop up out of Mazdas in “Afterlife,” seem also to be set in huge timeless infinite loops. Some of which include womanhood, motherhood, and what can grow inside a person. Petrosino is highly skilled at blending many worlds together in a poem that makes poetic sense – specific times and places, actual objects and experiences that cannot inhabit an object, and the everytime, everyplace feeling, an everlasting timeline of being, and often in poetic forms requiring repeated lines.
In Petrosino’s work, the body is part of the world, we are animals and part of the world, and there is the insistence of glitter in these places of lonely journey, watched by ancestors and other eyes. There are prayers, laments, oaths, elegies, requiems, vigils and prophecies, purgatory, temples and the “ought to/n/ought to” do I or don’t I decision tree dichotomy, letters, youth, age, geography, biology, war, history, diets and thigh gaps and undergarments, sermons and pastorals, death and life, marriage and politics, there you too can “see the world in a grain of sand”.
Please join me in welcoming Kiki Petrosino.”