Allen Ginsberg is the man.

As a resident Lower East Sider and poet, I’ve always heard of his stuff, and respected him on street cred alone. Little did I know that this whole time, I’d already been exposed to Ginsberg through one of my already favorite poets, Amiri Baraka. In “Somebody Blew Up America,” he has a meme that always begins with “who,” just as Ginsberg’s “Howl” does in the first part of his seminal piece, and very coincidentally, just as my entries always end.

At some point, this must have prompted Taylor the Teacher (along with listening to some Pink Floyd) to ask me whether or not Ginsberg inspired me to tag my entries the way I did. Of course, the ingenious mind that she is, she thought it’d be a cool idea to turn this into a poetry meme. Follow the rules:

1. My first line will start off just like Ginsberg’s:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked, …

2. The rest of the poem is where you come in. Write your next post, and make it about anything you want. No really. Not that you wouldn’t do it anyways, but …

3. At the end of the meme, sign off like I do, starting with a “who …”

4. Link back to this post for the rules and the origins.

For example, I’ll start off with “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked …”

and Taylor might write her next post sign-off with “who never understood the power of the Internet until that last post …” and mzvirgo might follow up with, “who is really more than just a gossip blogger,” and JD might chime in with, “who wishes the UFT were a more perfect union,” and so on and so forth.

I’m calling on anyone who’s reading to chime in, even if it’s something small. In 2 weeks time, I should have enough sign-offs to complete the first part of the poem from everything you all said. I’ll also complete parts 2 and 3 based on who responds to the call.

So …

Tracy. Bam. Talda. -1-. Damian. Jeff. NYCEd. Hugh. J. Dakar. BBC. LeeSee. AM.

CTG, aulelia, Bill, JM Holland, Wayne, Joanne …

I was ready to link all of you, but my keyboard’s melting …

jose, who saw the best minds of his generation emboldened by madness, hungry, hysterical, enlightened …

After the Immigration Protest today in Union Square (all the way to Federal Square), I finally decided to draw some lines where I needed to. If I’m going to talk about standards, then I need to start applying those in my life. Not that I haven’t, but I think I gave too much leeway because I’m always looking at another person’s world-view. This time though, I need to state my case since I don’t think anyone addressed it well at all. Sorry for being so vague, but follow me. The first line I’m drawing is in poetic form.

“Drawing The Line” by Jose Vilson

Let my verse rock a little
My thoughts flow through tumultuous waters
Either I’ll drown, swim, or walk
Either I’ll burn, learn, or elevate
Either I’ll die, live, or live past my death
I’m ready for the first, but I’m aiming for the third
I’ve been doing the second preparing for both
Focused on my works, my work, and what works
Passionately and proficiently
My etchings the scripture of a forlorn teacher
Searching for rebellion in the midst of conformists
Wondering where people get ideas that they’ve defected
When they confess they’re aligned with standards
Of a master yoking cattle led astray
Nothing less expensive than self-oppression
Or self-repression
Whether in the name of a religious figure 2000 years removed
Or in the name of a six-syllable word
Supposedly interpreted to mean that
These writings right here would deem me
Too far removed from the situation at hand
To understand the accuracy and dedication it takes
To handle mine
Yet, I subvert the cult
Banish the stoicisms
Break from the rites
And rituals we’re inundated with
Let the rabbis exalt us
Even when the pundits destroy us
The workers dismiss us
When the parents support us
The reporters represent us
Even when there’s condescension from our supervisors and peers alike
We’ll still conduct ourselves the way we will, alright?
My extracurricular activities don’t divert me from my job
They fuel the fire and keep it stoked
And higher than some overblown high-stakes state test
So when the winds blow
The roof shakes and people fear the makings of their foundation too shaky
It’s the lines I drew on the paper and my stances
Take my chances
Back when I wrote the blueprint of the house
That helped me shift back to the present matter
The people I teach, my delivery, my subject, my work
Intact because and not despite all of that
Professionalism
I know the word well
And I’ve been drawing that line ever since my pencil fell …

Last night, my girl and I saw 88 Minutes, which I found to be a good enough movie to keep my attention. While watching the previews, I noticed a very environmental theme (that they almost literally shoved in our faces). There was talk about carbon footprints, recycling, and all the other buzzwords associated with environment-friendly groups. My overall feeling with that kind of advertisement is that, despite how eco-friendly these corporations want to look, the truth is that these entities don’t care so much for how the Earth is treated except when it behooves them to do so.

For example, someone on the big screen said that we should pressure our government officials to find alternative sources of energy, but I can without a shadow of a doubt say that these resources have been available since the 90s, if not earlier. As a matter of fact, I believe the first solar cells were made in 1883, and since then, we’ve had the ability to harness the sun’s energy and thus reduce the carbon output for some time. Yet, the sun is not a resource that can be easily monopolized or conquered. Thus, not many people have really invested in its power except for their own institution. Then again, if they’re able to sell us back tap water for $1.25, then there’s no telling how they’ll sell us back our natural resources.

I’m not going so far as to say that corporations shouldn’t help raise the social consciousness of people all around them, and maybe take heed of the current trends within society, but knowing everything I know about these companies, the wasted products, the tons of layoffs, the outsourcing and near-slave wages, and the ridiculous profit margins while the rest of us suffer from the increased cost of living, I just can’t see corporations as “eco-friendly” no matter how hard I try.

Thoughts? Solutions? Throw them in the box …

jose, who’s off to his first poetry event (that I’m not performing in) in over 6 months or so …

p.s. - a poem …

spiders creep in, surely and steadily spinning their webs of doubt across the mobile units trying to devour them slowly, creeping and spinning while we try to decipher the intricate patterns set around and across us, the spider spins with more legs, quicker, stickier, and stronger becomes that web, tick tap tick tap tick tap, let the hypnosis ring in your ear until all traces of your existence surround you, envelop you, and the king spider places his piece in for the checkmate … be ready to counter spider, spin your own web, before your role goes from predator to prey …

Today, I found myself in a whirlwind of activity, getting ready for the NCTM Conference in Salt Lake City, UT (math conference for my non-teacher folk). This included decorating my room a bit, cleaning out my desk, and getting those grants for Penny Harvest ready with my kids, along with trying to maintain some sort of peace within my class. Yesterday, I spent all afternoon copying some exercises for them to do while the substitute is present, mainly because whenever I’m not in the school, something disastrous usually happens. It’s been well documented, and every administrator and even my kids are on alert this week from what I understand. This time, I hope that some of the things I’ve left thwart the bad luck, or at least curb it.

I also spent all afternoon making inspirational mini-posters for the classroom, like:

and printing them out, and meeting probably the most helpful Kinko’s rep I’ve ever met. After he couldn’t fully laminate my door dec, he gave it to me for free. Well done.

Anyways, I was thinking about live-blogging the NCTM (maybe then I’ll get invited into the virtual math club, not), but then I decided against it. No one in their right mind would live-blog something unless they were getting paid for it. Personally, I have no such aspirations. I won’t be another statistic for blog stress. But I’ll definitely have my laptop with me, and maybe I’ll post some thoughts so everyone has a little access into what’s going on there.

This afternoon, I also found myself in this type of mood:

Tug only slightly at my heart string
Collapse your hair across my shoulders
Let me unburden you
Heal bruises too clothed for me to reach
Coat you in my love
To be everything and nothing to you all at once
To love you and not hurt you
To close my eyelids and see nothing
But us
Confusion for the future
Trepidation in the present
Recanting from our past
You are the strongest lesson planned for me
Hoping to learn the rubric to grade me by memory …

jose, who has like 4 or so hours to get ready for this conference …

It’s a draft. I throw caution to the wind on this one, whatever that means …“Broken Wings” by Jose Vilson

Grounded
No lift while G_d sweeps the air from under me
I am the celestial being no more
My tarnished feathers scatter in the distance
Shattered bones clank down the empty stairwell
Where once I had arisen
Who will save me?
Does heaven not look kindly on his own parallel?
Born asunder
Lifted from his tyranny
Stricken down mightily by the hands that raise me
Depress me of my juices until I become a much sweeter and drier fruit for you
Squeeze until my skin can’t take it anymore
I will scream
I will kick
I will cry in anguish
The suns and moons will play with each other thrice
In the midst of constant denial and negativity
My eyes dilate
Concentrate
on a sliver of light, and hone in so strongly
It leaves an engraved passage in my retinae
The secret to growing my wings back
The whispers not found in the parchments selling long life and
the plethora of northern lights in the form of the heavenly bodies
I once was
From where the wind itself dumped me into the firmest of soil
Crawled in the dirt
To look into the water from whence I came and will return to
Read the message left there
In the most discernible letters possible
It said everything I needed to know
My humility restored
My purpose remembered
Ever strong from the pain endured
My skin aglow and my will intravenously regenerated
I am injected with the new day’s power
I spoke with a more enlightened tongue
Through my sullied t-shirt
The wings grew anew …

jose, who hasn’t written a sex poem in a good month and a 1/2 …

I got a gift from my stepfather. It’s weird because frankly I don’t expect anything from him and never have, but indeed I have this wrapped present in front of me, and it’s been sitting there waiting for my approval. I wonder what it is now that I’ve waited this long to lay waste to its wrappings. Certainly, that’s a different tone than has been set in this household for quite some time. While I don’t want to divulge too much of my history, I will say that the nights of loud salsa, rum aura, and angry family members hopefully is a thing of the past, and that has everything to do with me.

See, the problem with Christmas is that, as a child, I was always and forever entitled, hoping this ginormous White dude would suddenly appear in my hallway and slide a gift under my Christmas tree … or two, or three. And then I started noticing that I didn’t have a chimney from which Santa could climb down like in the commercials I saw on Fox Saturday morning. These images conflicted with what I learned about the Season of Giving through my Saturday Catholic classes and my Catholic education. Then, I noticed less presents and less family time. And of course, we had next to nothing, so every time I did get something for Christmas, I was ever grateful …

Until I was 13 when I got my Super Nintendo (I can’t believe it’s been 16 years since I got it). I was such an ungrateful little one. I immediately connected it, and didn’t thank my mom until it was a little too late. For 10 years afterwards, we’ve had oscillating success with this holiday, and ever since then, I’ve been trying to rebuild what I want from my family. Not so much from my stepfather’s side, who seems to have sealed its own fate, but my mom’s side. At the very least, the set of cousins and brothers we have in that collective could form some sort of bond, and maybe we’d get a little snowfall in the process.

After getting my first salaried job as a teacher, I decided to make that particular Christmas the one I forgave everything and everyone for. I kid you not, I gave gifts like I had lost my mind. I started saying grace, which is weird since I don’t really believe in any religion per se. I started to actually have serious conversations with my other family members, at least the younger generation. I started to feel like I had a family again, and this time, it was a feeling I didn’t want to let go of.

Now, that energy has been transmuted back into my elders, and that’s really what these holidays should be about. What’s the point of going to services and masses when the temple inside your home’s a wreck? My spirit replenished and refocused, I can celebrate togetherness all year round, with a special day to keep me on track …

On the 1st Day of Christmas, G_d gave to me
12 gifts from my kids
11 pieces of chocolate
10 comfy sweaters
9 pounds from my fam
8 drinks to choose from
7 calls from my friends
6 plates of good food
5 COMMENTS FROM YOUUUUUUU!!!!
4 people in this house
3 happy males
2 brothers sleeping
and 1 writer spreading the peace …

jose, who’s about as happy as he’s been for any holiday …

A few short notes:

- What I’m Listening To:

Zion, “Zun Da Da”
Babyface, “Wonderful Tonight” (originally by Eric Clapton)
Juan Luis Guerra, “El Niagra en Bicicleta”

- I was getting my students in line when some conversation came up about candy between me and the kids in the front. Each of the students said a piece of candy they liked. Then one of them says, “I know what I like to eat, Mr. Vilson. I like to eat women!” I literally stopped, gave him one of these:

  and

I had to turn around so they didn’t have to see my tears going up the stairs. I’m not sure if he knows what he was saying, so I really didn’t reprimand him for that. In other arenas, I’ve been known to say things like that too.

- A third of my student population either has relatives I’ve taught or know, or they look like people I’ve taught or know. I feel like Jose Arcadio Buendia in 100 Years of Solitude. If you don’t know anything about that book, get familiar.

- PostSecret: This postsecret still freaks me out.

- Sexy sexy. I love suggestive pictures.

- Much of my reading consists of blogs that highlight the negative aspects of life in the hopes that someone will hear us out and change what’s going on. Yet, if we don’t concentrate on the positive, we lack balance. I love getting enthralled in political discussion as much as the next person, but those discussions often become murky. Education can’t be all bad right? Right …

- “The Screamer and me” by Jose Vilson

Shorty wop with a fro dome
Rising 2 inches above his 4.5 foot frame
Basketball dreams
Chipped tooth gap
Smooth and cute smile
Pistol full of bullets that he is
Before my fingers rub together
Airing out that snap
He does just that
Screeching expletives and semi-curses
To the ceiling, to the next student, to the heavens
G_d’s cursed his family
His mother’s in and out of the hospital
He yells for attention, and he’ll get it by any means
He’s the least conspicuous, the most dangerous
His rage a decade his senior
The legacy of negativity from the educational system
Falls once again on him,
And he revels in the inevitability
He meets me with the same devious tricks
I meet him with water
I call out his soul when the body ramparts his sensitivities
He’s rejected everywhere he goes
His home is torn
But he’s too blind to see the home I’ve made
He’s never been approved of
But I bother him until he gets to the next class
He screams “Oh my G_d!”
And G_d answers with my patience …

jose, who’s always willing to discuss topics people feed to him, too …

Believe it or not, mi gente, I do listen to the oddest of tracks. My latest iPod additions include:

• Robbie Williams, “Millenium”
• Journey, “Don’t Stop Believing”
• Feist, “1234″
• Timbaland feat. One Republic, “Apologize”
• John Lennon, “Happy XMas (War Is Over)”

The New York Knicks suck. And I’m in pain right now just watching their sadness. We get beat by one of the best teams in the league (Boston Celtics) and the worst (Philadelphia Sixers). Any educator can tell you it starts from the administration. Someone fire James Dolan and make his father Charles sell the team, too.

I went to a bar on Friday night and there was a pretty little waitress there. She had these great facial features, and the only thing I thought to myself was “Yo, aren’t you my MySpace friend?” Social networks: another way to get great service at a bar.

We’re having a Secret Santa event at work, and while I’m a fan of what I received the first time we had a present exchange, I wanted to remove all doubt from whoever would get me something by telling the coordinator they could look me up on Amazon and pull up my wish list. I love it.

Last Friday, some of my children got disrespectful with me, and honestly, if I wasn’t a more reflective teacher, I’d probably consider taking the day off tomorrow, too. Even though the day itself wasn’t terrible, it didn’t end well. My only solace is that, as someone who constantly reflects on his actions, I can pinpoint where things started, and if not, at the very least, find a good solution to come in to class with. More on this tomorrow.

750am
I think of ways to change my energy
Match it to the level I want my pupils to feel
Anticipation of bad moods
Negative backstories
Improper namecalling
Anxiety over homework misunderstanding
Missed opportunities
Unplanned lesson plan
Fervor for a brand new day
Beautifully painted pictures
Correct and thorough answers
755am
Patters of sneakers and shoes hit the stairwell
Clean board
Buttoned-up collar
Rested mind
Chalk and attendance sheet in hand
Practices of my salutations
In between my classroom and the hallway
800am
Good morning
Come all my faithful
I await you with open mind and open-ended question
Amen …

jose, who needs a soul clap right now …

I have this one girl in one of my classes who’s awesome. She’s one of the sharpest students I’ve ever had as far as math. She’s funny, too, because she’s better at math than most of the people in the room. She’s got these big brown eyes that, even when I’m not talking to her, move along to wherever I go. At first, I thought it was another student crush; I’ve amassed a few of those in my early career.  But when I looked back at her, she didn’t try to look away. Today, I think I found the answer to why she does that.

“Student of the Month” © 2007 Jose Vilson

She’s a spitting image of the firecracker of a woman
I met at the parent-teacher conference
The woman a young, confident lady
My shoulder’s height and only a few years my senior
The little girl stands next to her parental unit
With a wide-eyed gaze
Amazed at the conversation her mother’s having with another man
Though professional, the girl rarely sees a man she cares about
Getting along with the woman in between us
Her stress undresses her oft-coarse hair
Her voice rests under her larynx,
A sign of restless nights
Often misinterpreted for a calm demeanor
Her solemn facial expressions yearn for a more similar
Childhood to the others in class
Intelligent, and fierce with the maths
September’s student of the month
October’s fall into deprivation, depression, and a series of little inner deaths
Her smiles are still authentic but seldom
25 sets of eyes look at me for knowledge
But only one of them glares and stares for life’s answers
Like why I’m one of the few males in her life she can rely on
Why that spark plug of a mother can’t instill some energy in her
Why her father and mother make her daydream of places where
Fathers and mothers can stay husbands and wives
Stay together long enough so she can catch the remaining years
Of innocent smiles and candy coated classrooms
Before she breaks into a world where this teacher and every teacher
Has to release her from this womb, too …

jose, who knows that everything he is not made him everything he is …

By the way, I didn’t know my last blog was blocked from comments, but that’s fine. It was a post I just needed to exhale. Thanks for your concerns again, though.

On my way back from Florida, I had to think of what poems I wanted to perform for the Tavern of Creativity (presented by Cathy Delaleu and hosted by Rob Bless). I was invited by Cathy, so for that I was grateful. I was a little nervous; I just got back from seeing my father in a hospital bed, and I didn’t know if I was even up for it. Little did I know that the performance was exactly what I needed to relieve my stress.

Besides the great atmosphere, the food, and the performances, I also felt I had grown so much since the last time I performed in front of people. With all the teaching, speeches, and blogs, I felt I got a better sense of what it means to reach a wide audience. So I got up there and did “I’m Full,” “Whoops,” and “Armaggedon is Upon Us.” (I can’t put those online, but if you want them by e-mail, I can provide that.) I even did a little “I Wonder” by Kanye West. I can’t speak on everyone else’s experiences there, but with a packed house receptive to a crazy middle school teacher’s rantings, I felt anything was possible.

What’s more is that many of the artists up there were already published, and had works up for sale at the event, and I couldn’t provide that at the moment. It was interesting to see how they responded to me. Sometimes you’ll get the snide comments, but the artists there were so open about things and genuine, so it was cool.

Anyways, school’s still cool. I’m still optimistic, but I’m already starting to see where I’m going to have issues, and that goes for everything and one in the school. So far so good, though, and I’ve been dressed professionally every day, which is a result of and has helped cause my rather optimistic and positive attitude. I don’t feel the pressure I did before, and it’s helped a lot. Tomorrow, I’m teaching the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (basically, every number greater than 1 has a unique set of primes, etc. etc.). I’ve already taught the sieve of Eratosthenes, so that’s exciting. I’m sure JD2718 appreciates that, especially since I’m teaching 6th graders this.

Anyways, week 3 is upon us NYC teachers. Holla back …

jose, who has an education rant just waiting to come out of him …