Teach Issue 24

Why Teach The Common?

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Supplementary materials for teaching Issue 24 are listed below.

For further exploration, here and elsewhere

To accompany Sindya Bhanoo’s fiction piece “Tsunami Bride,” read “Some of India’s ‘tsunami brides’ fare better than others,” Sindya’s nonfiction article on the gendered and interpersonal ramifications of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (via SFGATE). Also check out this podcast interview, where managing editor Emily Everett speaks to Sindya Bhanoo about how the techniques she developed as a journalist have shaped her drafting and revision process for fiction, how food often makes its way into her stories, and how her 2022 story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere came together.

After reading “Geist,” students may read another one of Kathleen Heil’s explorations of romance and translation in her poem “Please” (via Poetry Daily). Also check out Heil’s thoughts on the importance of literary translation in her interview with the National Endowment for the Arts.

Explore more of Gerardo Sámano Córdova’s colorful, absurdist work with his (very) short pieces “Forgotten” and “Boss” (both via Passages North). For a fun comparison with the art described in “Iceberg, Mine,” view Córdova’s art via his Instagram page.

Rossella Milone’s historical fiction piece “Operation Avalanche” draws its title from the U.S. Navy landings in Italy at the end of World War II. Read more about Operation Avalanche via the Naval History and Heritage Command.

To learn about the socio-political underpinnings of Ahmed Naji’s “Lions of the Church,” read about the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt (via ABC News).

Langston Hughes’s poem “Impasse” is quoted repeatedly in Alexis M. Wright’s essay “Which One is the Lifeline?” Read more about Hughes’s significance in the literary world and his revolutionary depictions of Black Americans in a short biography via Poets.org. The essay also follows the journey along the N Judah, a rail line in San Francisco: you can watch a first-person perspective of riding the N Judah (via Bay Area Transit News on YouTube).

Students working with Robin Lee Carlson’s “Reading the Ashes” may be interested in visiting her personal website and Instagram page to view more of her artwork and writing. You can read a Q&A with Carlson about art, nature, and her connection to the Cold Canyon (via ZYZZYVA). For a deeper dive into those topics, listen to Carlson speak on the podcast Journaling With Nature.

Students reading Meera Nair’s “Desire Tree” may be interested to learn more about the significance of banyan trees with this article by mythology expert Devdutt Pattanaik (Devdutt.com). And don’t forget to give our podcast interview with Meera Nair a listen—she speaks about the long process of writing her Issue 24 piece, writing from memories, finding the right length for a piece, and teaching revision strategies to her creative writing students.

Tommye Blount’s poem “Charcoal” depicts the scene of costume designer Clare West designing robes for the notoriously racist film “Birth of a Nation,” which depicted the KKK in a positive light. Read more about “Birth of a Nation” via Britannica.

Poet Matt Donovan writes on gun violence in “Guy With a Gun.” Donovan recently published the Dug Up Gun Museum, a collection about gun violence. You can read an interview on that collection (via Smith College) and read a poem from the collection, “The Wrong Question More Than Once” (via The Slowdown). Additional poems by Donovan on gun violence are “Green Means Literally a Thousand Things or More” (via poetry.org) and “Here the Thing with Feathers Isn’t Hope” (via New England Review).

Darius Simpson’s poem “Ode to Powerline” references the character Powerline from Disney’s A Goofy Movie (1995) and quotes Powerline’s iconic song “I21.” Watch the original scene on YouTube or listen to “I2I”, also on YouTube via the voice of Powerline, Tevin Campbell. For more context on the importance of The Goofy Movie, read article “The Enduring Legacy of Disney’s Black Millennial Classic ‘A Goofy Movie’” (by Austin Williams via Vice).

After reading Tara Skurtu’s “Maiden’s Tower,” students may be interested in learning more about Skurtu’s work through her TEDx talk on creativity (via TEDx Talks on Youtube). Skurtu also started The International Poetry Circle, an initiative to bring people together during the pandemic by reading poems aloud. Read Skurtu’s introductory blog post to the project via Medium, or explore the hashtag on Twitter.

Daniel Tobin’s “The Lesson” references John Keats’s “Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art,” a poem written by a very young and terminally ill poet who is clinging to life. Read Keats’s poem, accompanied by an analysis and explanation of the archaic language by Dr. Oliver Tearle.

Teach Issue 24

Why Teach The Common?

For further exploration, here and elsewhere

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