{"id":4723,"date":"2012-11-10T16:22:48","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T21:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=4723"},"modified":"2012-11-10T16:22:48","modified_gmt":"2012-11-10T21:22:48","slug":"still-learning-from-the-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/11\/still-learning-from-the-student.html","title":{"rendered":"still learning from the student ~"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u00a0And<em> no one exists alone&#8230;.We must love one another or die. \u00a0 ~ Auden<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A dear former student just posted a line of Auden to my FaceBook:\u00a0<em>We must love one another or die.<\/em>\u00a0It&#8217;s from the poem &#8220;September 1, 1939,&#8221; one of my favourites. Sitting in a cafe, surrounded by friends \u00a0who are quietly writing, I was overcome for a moment.<\/p>\n<p>I miss teaching. Not the grading, not even standing up in front of a rapt class. I miss the learning, the many ways human being teach other what is important. As my former student reminded me just now: we are never alone.<\/p>\n<p>Poetry is such a huge part of my life. Other people go off on riffs about their bikes, or gardens, or their hobbies. I go off on dead poets and metre and metaphor and the neo-sonnet. I just did that at lunch&#8230; Sigh&#8230; My poor, long-suffering friends.<\/p>\n<p>Because poetry is the heart&#8217;s language &#8212; that way of laying out the finite griefs that seem forever, the fragile and joys that craze and shatter even as we contemplate them. What I have learned these many years of teaching is that I&#8217;m not a particularly amazing teacher; I&#8217;m just lucky enough to teach an amazing art: writing. Often poetry.<\/p>\n<p>To teach poetry &#8212; to teach writing &#8212; is to learn with students this mysterious way of speaking and knowing. It&#8217;s to understand how (&amp; why) Auden would say so bluntly:\u00a0<em>We must love each other or die.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0And no one exists alone&#8230;.We must love one another or die. \u00a0 ~ Auden A dear former student just posted a line of Auden to my FaceBook:\u00a0We must love one another or die.\u00a0It&#8217;s from the poem &#8220;September 1, 1939,&#8221; one of my favourites. Sitting in a cafe, surrounded by friends \u00a0who are quietly writing, I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,216,319,22,43],"tags":[173,11,1187,1190,1197],"class_list":["post-4723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attachment","category-education","category-learning","category-poetry","category-teaching","tag-auden","tag-beginners-heart","tag-buddhism","tag-poetry","tag-teaching"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>still learning from the student ~ - Beginner&#039;s Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u00a0And no one exists alone....We must love one another or die. \u00a0 ~ Auden A dear former student just posted a line of Auden to my FaceBook:\u00a0We must love one\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/11\/still-learning-from-the-student.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"still learning from the student ~ - 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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