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Common Core Standards and Urban Decay Inspire First Poem for 30/30 May



This May I will be giving my time to write 30 new poems for Tupelo Press, which is in the throes of raising money via crowd-sourcing for new projects. They are non profit. Grants remain at recession lows.

So, this morning as I met with my graduating seniors during their one on one conference (we discuss plans for success, grades, papers, attendance, etc) I pulled up Common Core Apps while waiting for a senior to fetch his book for his book report. The app is Common Curriculum, a cool lesson plan and web posting service. For some reason the idea struck to adopt some of the standards for a United States of Poetry--which sounded dystopian and Orwellian to my ears. So I mashed up some made up standards with some urban decay riffs. The urban decay riffs will need tweaking as they don't really strike any new visual ground, but rather cull standard tropes together. The made-up Common Core riffs are meta, and will also need to be made consistent. There is obvious commentary about CC evident in the adoption of them as a trope, but personally I don't feel one way or another about CC.  It's solid. It's red tape mumbo jumbo. Some politician's pet publishing project will make millions from the lobbying CC has generated/will generate.

Hey--I only have a few hours after school to make this stuff up. There is little league soccer, homework with my kids, homework to grade, and chores to be done--after co-teaching with a student intern all day.

Here's a sample. You can enjoy the whole thing here--when it's posted. You can donate as well, please just mention my name at the CC or paypal line.

CITY DYSTOPIA POEM WRITTEN IN COMMON CORE STANDARDS1 FROM THE UNITED STATES OF POETRY. THE FUTURE.
11.22.3.1.3.4 Poet shows mastery of syllabic arrangement,
Poems part air with fricative and plosive.
Wires hang below the fences. The men and women
sneaking under have come to their senses. To leave the city?
To fix wires to the switch, to un-man explosives?
12.11.4.7.9 Poets break lines with tone in mind, and the placement
of themes is evident in the scheme of images; sounds are in unison.
Jobs are scarce and the copper pipes have been stolen, all the scrap
rides in the truck bed, stacked high with the merry laughter of aluminum.
12.11.2.3.5.6 Poet reveals evidence of relationship with American tradition
or ethnic tradition, or cultural tradition, showing how two or more cultures
treat subjects from varying periods. Beats2 slap on in small fields,
the ones sprouting up outside cities. Who dares to feed the millions
teeming in the boxes and pods, the rooms of mist in the streets at dawn3?


1 These “standards” are adopted from the real Common Core Standards adopted by states via the Race to the Top Federal Grant. Some are more “poetic” than others, something that draft work will correct. The structure of the poem will need either more or less of either '”part”: bureaucracy or dystopia. I'm not sure which.
2 I kept thinking of Saul Williams slam poem “Ohm” here.

3 Ginsberg reference, obviously

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