Invitation to SI 2016

There’s quiche in the fridge, French bread in the oven, and juice cups on the kitchen table being decorated by my daughters. David is making lists and moving everything into the Beard Building. We are almost ready to begin Summer Institute 2016 tomorrow. Exciting!

Tomorrow morning, David, Kevin Rutherford (SUNY Cortland), and I will welcome Tammy, Laurie, Ellen, and Jeanette to the Seven Valleys Writing Project and see how much writing they can do!

This year’s SI includes one face-to-face week in the Beard (first floor) and a week of work done remotely. We will be in the Beard 8:30-4:30 each day this week with lunch 12:00-12:45.

We would love to see any of you who can make the journey any day Tuesday through Friday. Come for as much time as you like. Bring your writing stuff.

We will post histories and a link to our daily agendas each day so you can join in from afar. Please do!

Also remember we will meet July 12 in the Beard from 10-12 with lunch and beverages afterward. We’ve heard from some of you that you’ll attend (if nothing better comes along!) and that’s great.

Cheers to all and to the 2016 Summer Institute!

Published Poem - Vehicle - Dick Allen

I came across this poem somewhere a long time ago. I think it was even before I started reading The Writer's Almanac. It struck me then as something quietly spectacular, the play of the word vehicle, the dictionary definitions, the comparisons, and all of it leading me to that last line. I've read only one other Dick Allen poem. Anyone know his work?

Let us know in the comments what you think of the poem and maybe if it makes you feel like writing about someone you've loved.


Vehicle
Dick Allen


Something for transport. A device
pushed or pulled or driven,
launched, perhaps. Paddled,
rowed across a river, flown
as out of JFK. Something that holds together
while being used: a train
racing a car across Kansas,
a bicycle, a motorboat, even
the Voyager Spaceship. Also,
the medium through which a thing
finds its way home: a novel,
the tenor of a metaphor,
a play, a role, a piece of music
used to display
whatever's shown off in it. . . . The oil
for mixing paint pigments.
The substance of no therapeutic value
conveying an active medicine: a poet
looking from a casement window,
the priest or rabbi holding a dying hand.

All teachers are welcome at the Seven Valleys Writing Project where teachers teach teachers using writing to learn. 

published poem - What's In My Journal - William Stafford

What's in My Journal 
William Stafford


Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
things, fishhooks, barbs in you hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beautify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the knid
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yarn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

What's in your writing journal?

Bad News, Good News

The bad news is that we aren't going to be able to do the Summer Institute this year. For the first time since 2008, there won't be a Seven Valleys Writing Project Summer Institute. We just could not get the enrollment. That's a bummer, but it's the way that things shook out this year.

The good news is that we aren't dead yet.

July 12, 2016 - Cortland

Save that date. We are going to come together in Cortland, time and place to be determined soon. One goal is to begin rebooting the writing project, figuring out how to attract good people and do good work. We want to figure out how to have people more involved, leading others. We want to do a better job of staying in touch and promoting conversations.

But the other goal is just to get to see as many of you as we can. We will meet for an hour or so and then continue the meeting at some local watering hole that also serves beer and bourbon. There we will frolic, talk over what the school year has been like, and see what else happens.

The best thing about the writing project is that it brings together the faculty you have dreamed of. It's time we brought that faculty together again.

I'll be writing to many of you individually, but thought I would put this out in a more public fashion. My hope is to keep updating this with things that are of interest to you as teacher-leaders and that will help us stay in touch. I'm hoping too that many of you will want to contribute here.

There's no 2016 Summer Institute, but there is always a Seven Valleys Writing Project. Let's get the band back together and see what kind of music we can make.