RE Slater - Proposal for Educational Reform, Part 2

In January or February of 2011 U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan expressed the very ideas I had been discussing with my school district over the last several years regarding the replacement of our academic college prep programs with occupational curricula degree programs that would vary from 2-3-4 years in length while allowing for early graduation and/or cross-over studies. These programs would be found in the major areas listed below, among others:

• Sciences (Medical, Environmental, etc)
• Engineering and Technology (including Architecture, etc)
• Arts and Literature
• Music and Drama
• Social Sciences
• Business

With the creation of these degree programs we would do so in cooperation with area businesses, industries and social agencies seeking to train their local human resources. As such, these occupational courses should be open-ended to allow a young person to rejoin his educational interests should he or she need to graduate early and work. They should also create a strong linkage to the local community college's educational core curricula supported within that district's area of operation.

Why provide early educational graduations? To alleviate schools from the burden of housing students who either can't be in school or don’t want to be in school thus saving already restricted tax monies now being re-allocated elsewhere; to give kids a way to become economically independent and responsible; to create a younger employment force that could add to a district's already strained tax base; thus creating more monies for school districts from a larger tax base; and finally, to reduce youth crime through early employment responsibility.

Too, major state universities have economically hurt America by restricting middle-class scholarships and forcing higher tuition rates (probably since the 1980s). These rates have become unsustainable by middle income families and have caused middle class youths to migrate to regional or community colleges seeking lower tuition costs  while leaving the very wealthy to attend America's landmark universities. As a result America's middle class is quickly disappearing and we are finding a more pronounced class stratification more than ever as the rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer. America's backbone has been broken and we see this with the loss of jobs, entrepreneurships, and successful ventures across middle America.

Further, state universities have expanded degree program requirements rather than concentrating them as they necessarily push remedial education onto every entering freshman who have come unprepared for college study. Undergraduates are now graduating between 22-26 years of age because of the several factors involving poor educational preparation, the increased costs of college and the lack of economically viable jobs for lesser trained individuals.

And so, instead of having our nation's youth effectively (or efficiently) competing on global levels in the world-at-large by the ages of 16-19, we as a nation have created a half-life for our nation’s kids now entering into the workforce after a third of their life has passed cradled within our nation's school systems. The sheer talent of energy and brainpower has been lost between those intervening 10 years of educational study and purposeful postponement of talented laborers confined by our educational systems. America must reform its educational regiments and it must be holistic, rigorous and complete for as it stands now we've boxed ourselves in by too many degrees, longer core studies and fewer workplace opportunities.

When China and India are graduating 300 engineers to every 1 of ours it doesn’t take many smarts to realize that we’re on the losing end of a global competition. And while we both under-train and over-qualify our kids we are losing out. And by pushing our future tax bases into their late-20's we’re restricting the flow of necessary funds that would come sooner with a younger, more productive youth force.

About the only good that can be said about America's current educational system is that their community college programs have stepped up to the consumer plate and are offering shorter-term degrees and apprenticeship solutions for early entry highschoolers, needy urban youths, and economically-minded families and youths unwilling to go further into debt for a nebulous university degree with no concrete job prospects and outrageous school loan repayment plans.

In summary, middle schools should be teaching first and second year high school basics; high schools should be implementing occupational degree programs; and universities should stop teaching high school courses and get on with a variety of shorter-term, highly concentrated degree programs that integrate with business and industrial apprenticeship programs resulting in more certain job placements after college graduation. As such, American business and industry would not need to add yet another year or three of specialized training to the entering college student’s agendas thus pushing our aging youth further from their productive years of contribution and resource building.

And this is how I would describe national educational deficiencies and degrading economic metrics for our nation's educational systems. In hindsight, it's amazing we’ve gotten this far by our outmoded 20th-century style of mass-producing literate students known as "public education!" It is time for radical change - one that makes sense for our kids and for our communities so that America can globally compete with a rising world seeking to integrate its literate societies with other viable, literate societies in a stealthy web of cooperation and competition.


by R.E. Slater, March 2011

Wilfred Owen - Strange Meeting

Wilfred Owen, 1917



It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;

And by his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,

And no guns thumped, or down the fluies made moan.

"Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."

"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,

Was my life also; I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world,

Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,

But mocks the steady running of the hour,

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.

For by my glee might many men have laughed,

And of my weeping something has been left,

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled.

Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery;

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;

To miss the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,

Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.

I would have poured my spirit without stint

But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now…

RE Slater - Proposal for Educational Reform, Part 1

A new national educational reform must take place allowing our local schools to compete on a global stage beginning with the replacement of our traditional system of mass learning with schools orientated towards occupational curriculas, local internships, self-paced programs, and earlier graduation programs beginning in the 2nd to the 4th year of high school study. It must give the desperate assistance required to the poorest and least empowered of our nation while at the same time recover our languishing middle classes slipping into the waysides of our society and becoming a mere labor force rather than an entrepreneurial workforce that is aggressive and business-minded.

It must be flexible enough to allow for the greatest expansion and the greatest opportunity for that youthful segment of our society that is most desirous of innovation and success, most impacted by our decisions, and most willing to hope great hopes of aspiration. Anything less than this is to watch our schools slide into oblivion, and our societies with it, as our educational system drains its peoples and its students of national effectiveness and God-given rights to become a trained, literate, impassioned, responsive work force and a highly functioning, interconnected, inter-dependent society of the 21st Century.

I believe we need a new type of national school system. One that will reduce the current high school and college educational programs from 4 to 3 to 2 years, and that is orientated around an occupational curricula that allows for core expansion and crossover studies. One that would allow for shortened learning cycles so that those students requiring immediate employment may find those opportunities within a school's job/career training center which may meet their more immediate personal and family needs. That schools would make available to young people a variety of occupational apprenticeships so that they may become sufficiently qualified to compete for jobs with the confidence that comes from effective training and study. It is critical that the public school system orientate itself towards an occupational curricula and remove the general academic curricula now in place. To intentionally present an earlier level of skill sets that a young person both desires and needs. To abandon its current standards of No Child Left Behind and MEAP Testing with the more practical standards of training and apprenticeship that could sit alongside that of the more academic traditional form of study.

And with the successful placement of a young person into the work force a community will soon discover improving returns both fiscally and relationally. Not only is the job market satisfied but so too will be a district's need for finances and resources. A larger tax base is being nurtured and with that comes monies to operate our schools. As it is now, the costs of educational training well into the college years and beyond is placing the nation's student population further and further from effective employment. Public education has become too expensive and the vast majority of students within our public schools and colleges are overwhelming our resources with higher tuition fees, newer taxes, and dwindling employment returns.

Statedly, America’s costs of education have become too high and its process of education has become too lengthy for the value that our nation needs at this critical time to compete against the larger, more skilled work forces being produced in countries like India and China. By restructuring academic degree programs (as well as related costs) America can produce a more efficiently trained workforce for lesser jobs not requiring the traditional path of high school and college training currently underway. Too, it will free up educational resources to concentrate upon more intensive training required by other skill sets that an individual may wish to pursue requiring longer graduation times. Not everyone requires competent knowledge in algebra 3 or organic chemistry, but this is not to say that this education should not be offered. Yet in the world of pragmatic metrics and Internet resources the job market is requiring more and more specific skill sets and less and less broad-based general educational knowledge that our traditional schools have been in the business of providing.

It is not too honest to say that the public education system, primarily the middle school and high school systems, have become outmoded and impractical. And while our community colleges have offered the highest response to occupational training I would fault major universities with creating unnecessary and time-consuming core curriculums for their 4-year degree programs. Especially in the area of post-high school remedial education in the freshman and sophomore years as they re-teach basic reading, writing, maths and sciences earlier received in a student's teen years. For some perhaps this is necessary but for many it delays graduation and ages our nation's dwindling workforce.

Not only does this system withhold America’s youth from acquiring an earlier apprenticeship but it presents a degree-competency turn-around that is imprudent. Beyond the industrial revolution’s requirements for “reading, writing and arithmetic” has now come the outcry for a more specific knowledge and skill subsets that is not readily available for job outsourcing. Today’s current four year high school programs and “college prep” curriculas are not producing the needs that our global societies are requesting. Jobs are being lost to global manufacturing and whole cities are displacing their brain trust and work forces in employment relocation efforts across America. As a nation we have lost our entrepreneurial edge in industry and it is being reflected all too well within our non-entrepreneurial educational systems.

allow occupational apprenticeships within its curricula it retards the former question at the expense of the latter's need to broadly train competent, motivated, talented individuals. It is bankrupting our educational system on many levels from support to personnel to facility/asset resources. But by acquiescing, and providing trained apprenticeships more directly into the workforce it will create a more effective community of workers who can support their school system through infrastructural supports like expanded resources (both fiscal and human), experientially and pragmatically. This would then prevent a community's network-of-neighborhoods from urban blight and regional job displacement as high schools meet the demand for specific job training and placement that capital consumerism necessarily demands.

Thus, it is important to streamline our educational system to better reflect its regional needs while balancing its global needs to compete and succeed in less understood and under-commercialized projects. To train for the frontiers of knowledge import while not neglecting to support the current markets being effectively applied. Not everyone can or should be involved in the frontiers of market creation, but it is important to keep a community fiscally solvent enough so that it can determine its own destiny through work placement and market support.

To this I would begin an educational list that would summarize these initiatives:

1  Create high school (and college) degree programs of 2, 3, and 4 years, as pertaining to the subject area of expertise required while removing any graduation requirement barriers thusly.

1b Allow for a mixture of curricular degree programs of choice (cross-over majors) as well as a mixture of curricular and academic programs should future college training be sought.

2  Remove all state core requirements and infuse "elective majors" beginning in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades with concentrations in:

• Engineering and Technology
• Medical Sciences and Services
• Business and Finance
• Specific Trades School (Design, Construction, Aircraft Maintenance, etc)
• The Arts and Humanities (Music, Theatre, Dance)

3  Provide earlier apprenticeship programs in middle school and high school and remove unnecessary core competency requirements.

3b Expect to place youth into the workforce more rapidly while recognizing that not all students have the same interests, talents or abilities. And that some may require more training than others regarding their elective choices and talents.

4  Elevate middle school requirements to incorporate the basic academic curricula of the early high school years (place 9th/10th grade basics into the 6th through 8th grades).

5  Reduce college term lengths from 4 to 3 to 2 years by removing unnecessary/repetitive class and remedial educational requirements that major universities currently undertake in the freshman and sophomore years.

6  Provide for more pervasive online instruction but not so as to displace the traditional teacher role with simply “teacher-mentors”. Personal instruction is still invaluable to the overall success of any student's mentoring process.

7  Do not neglect to give early instruction and appreciation for differing cultures and faiths that successful global communications will require in business and networking.

8  Privatize public schools for better community management and development (as versus the slower, less effective, less nimble, state and federal educational systems now in place).

9  Virtualize school boundaries with a pay-in system for non-district students through Internet resourcing.

Concluding Observations

The public education of the 1930's that offered assembly-line models of mass learning is effectively broken and must re-engage its consumer base. A nationalized education system retards effective entrepreneurial market development, is slower to respond, and more costly to retain than a regionally-driven educational model.

America must be able to compete in the 21st Century and cannot with its outmoded, ineffective and obsolete public school educational system. Teens need viable job choices by 16 and 17 years of age and it is in the best economic interests of the US to graduate their kids within occupational program studies.

By not capitalizing on differentiating a study program's majors until a kid's sophomore or junior college term we are creating enormous costs on our school systems and on our society at-large. Nor can we compete against India and China’s educational mills with their larger population resources. We must train earlier and more efficiently than ever before and cannot be satisfied in placing our students into the workforce at 22-25 years of age. We have to lower that age group beginning with 16-17 years of age and more effectively train those who decide to remain within it.

In the most sublime sense, it is time and money that we compete most against. Not against other nations or their economies. For it is time that equates to opportunity and money that equates to the seizure of those opportunities. To demand that the national student population be equally competent with one another is to drive down all our students to the most basic, minimal level of education. And to restrict early graduation is to prevent the help and assistance that a younger apprenticeship work force could lend to their supporting community.

One could go on and on with this type of reasoning but it is enough to say that our public schools must radically reform and essentially disappear as ineffective and outmoded operations. The time is now for clear, decisive, chaotic reform to begin.

R.E. Slater, February 2011

R.E. Slater - Retelling the Story of Young Men and Fire (a short story and poems)

Retelling the Story

of Young Men and Fire

by R.E. Slater

Now we enter into a different kind of world, a world of slow time that accompanies grief and personal sorrow upon an inaccessible mountain marked by concrete stations of the cross. It is all that remains from the many erosions of wintry rains, snowy melts, and the slippery slides that have washed away the lonely ashes of Mann Gulch’s fiery deaths on a late summer's afternoon 0n August 5, 1949. What dramatic, devastating forces coincided to make the best of our young men as solitary, ashy bodies, burnt beyond recognition to be left unexplained in the mysteries of grief and pain? What memories ran through these young men as they raced for their lives against a fast-moving wall of heat leaving only loved ones behind to explain their catastrophe - how it came to be, the fatal choices they would make, and how it led them to their untimely deaths? How do we, as outside witnesses, transform this catastrophe into the measured grains of consolation so that we are no longer left with sorrow's tragedy? For too many times have we been held silent in our witness to death's unhallowed canvas that would prevent us from voicing our anger. Our disappointments. Or not permitted to voice out loud by a friend's mere presence or society's standards. Leaving us only with the feelings of emptiness, bereavement, deep loss, and sorrowing pain.

Dare we write this tragic story knowing that it is possible there may be no ending that can offer us consolation or absolution? That those connected with this ending may wish it lost forever in the strands of time? Lost from public inspection. Lost from scrutiny. Lost even to failing memory? But perhaps there may be an ending that can be told based upon a storyteller’s faith in seeking its truth, and in the seeking uncover its dramatic ending, so that it could be filled with a story that honors the dead. That might atone for their sufferings while adding to our own understanding at the plight these poor unfortunates found themselves cast upon on a fateful day as they raced for a hilltop that never would come. A day that when it comes would teach us immeasurable lessons through personal lost and horror.

For it was on the Missouri River, in the harshest wildlands of western Montana, that we enter into a survey of the universe’s most basic elements at work. To there discover the heavy winds of a stormy sky flowing unimpeded across the length of a mighty river’s wend till met by undaunted rocky ridges uplifted against shearing mountain cliffs. Cliffs that would cleave those winds into a dozen different down drafts flung off from the white-capped river waters far below to race headlong into unfamiliar gullies and mingling canyons, wild and alone. And there, churn into the deadly gases of hot furnace winds and towering walls of fire that would meet innocent boys intent on controlling its building rage. And though the element of water could not be used high up on those lost ridges, nor would the roiling skies above allow but one drop from its depleted rainstorms, it was here we find the willowy ranks of young men cast between the ages of 17 and 24 who would begin the hard work of flanking their relentless opponent. Who willingly shouldered their heavy iron shovels, the two-man whiplash of buck-toothed timber saws, and the fireman's resourceful Pulaski, that would soon be used to scour the earth to create the hard-won fire lines and many numerous fire breaks necessary to control a fire's rage hungry for the fuel of scrub and fallen limbs.

Bringing us to see yet another element in play here - that of the human spirit - adventurous, iron-willed, courageous, hopeful, as ever can be found in the youthful ranks of young men come of age as smokejumpers, themselves fearless and alone. Whose very lives would very soon be measured in mere minutes and seconds. Not in the days and weeks that they had once come to expect as a spreading wildfire danced through timber-dry conditions upon heavy, cleaving winds towards young men caught unawares of the seething, boiling firestorm brewing on the far slopes down below. A blowup that would shortly race through the hot, simmering canyonland, eating through its scrub and hillock as if its very walls had been set to act as a flinty chimney flue formed eons before to release its rage. Here then will we find the conflagration of five of the most basic elements of the universe - earth, wind, fire, water, and spirit - all combined in one intent and to one end.... That of the death and destruction, and imperiled will and survival, of fifteen brave young men caught unawares in a race only noble hearts may run and lose.

And so it is the task of the storyteller to search for a story that may at times not take on the form of a written work of art when remembering those spare remnant moments of life left to some tragic few. And yet it is left to him or her to uncover what a life may mean when measured out in the short arcs of pathos and struggle as it marches steady onwards towards certain death against a springtime of limericks and lyrics that would make up most of who we are, and what we have, and would have been. Is it too much to ask then of a past depleted life when inspecting his or her earlier moments lived, that it give back to us some sense of life’s final shape and design? Perhaps as proof that we inhabit a world of sublime truth fraught within a chaotic order seemingly found everywhere around and burgeoning with its insanities, sufferings and pains? That within this dark disorder we may come to find lives other-than-our-own that once sought for singular artistic expression that would draw on a mightier canvas when coloured in by life's deeper brush strokes of meanings and shades of intent? That could perhaps give significance to our meager lives when asking - or answering - the questions of “Who we are." "What we are." And the all-important, "Why we are?"

And if there is such a story it will take something of a storyteller to find it, to imagine it, to hear what impulses drove these young men to fight a raging fire that would very shortly turn into their own personal stories of travesty blown up with unimagined ferocity and astonishing quickness. And there perhaps find, within this tragedy, its further end-story that has lied within the bones of their ashes silently uncomposed and decomposing. He should probably be an old storyteller... at least one who is old enough to know that the problem of identity is always a problem and not just a problem of youth. And even old enough to know that the nearest anyone can ever come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself. What drives him. What keeps him in place. What moves his inmost being towards truth and unseen hidden beauty. For it is in the world of slow-time, beset by death and grief, that truth and art may be found as one element in the most ancient expressions of mankind's corporeal humanity. Of the what, and the why, and the who, that we are. And to which we owe our breath and existence to as we each one move in our own slow-time and steady beat towards life's finality and completion. This then is the art and the craft of the storyteller forever bound with his few salient readers in somber journey's discovery of life's ancient rhymes and prismatic mysteries considered all-the-more divine when wrapped in humanities greatest of struggles... that of fearlessness, desperation and survival.

- Adapted by R.E. Slater

December 23, 2010
rev. April 6, 2012

from Norman Maclean’s (c. 1902-1990) story,

"Young Men & Fire," Chicago Press, 1992 (pp 142-146)

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

One of thirteen Stations of the Cross

A rescue ridge too far

Two unlikely survivors who were the youngest and most inexperienced, who had raced from behind

their fellow firefighters in a maddening dash for life itself. One of the two leads the rescue team out

from Mann Gulch while the other gazes back upon the fire's horrific ravages from 12 hours before

when caught in a massive conflagration uniting all fires into one deadly cauldron.

Smokejumpers parachuting down upon a forest fire

Mann Gulch boiling in the summer airs

After reading Norman Maclean's studied tragedy of a fated crew of Smokejumpers stationed in Missoula, Montana, I knew that I must write a poem about the very thing of fire itself - but not simply of fire, but of the God of fire that speaks through holy flames to so fragile a creation formed from the bowels of mother earth in the sublimest of terms. And when I had completed this task I knew immediately that I must then write a second, much longer poem about the Mann Gulch tragedy itself so that my earlier poem could be better understood when framed in the blood, sweat, and tears of a hallowed firefighter crew's misfortune. My reasoning went along the lines of how does one write of the God of creation and expect readers to understand this God of whom you write unless it be through the flared nostrils and terrified breaths of those who have come close to the hand of God and suffered terrible tragedy? Then, and then only, did I feel that my initial poem could better reflect the inspiration that had so fully overwhelmed me when first connecting the two subject matters together as one. And in the process I had hoped to provide a final ending to those unfortunates lives that might live on with us today in some sense of poetic reflection. That reminds us of the many men and women who dedicate themselves each fire season protecting lives and properties, woods and streams, parklands and wildlife. Who have committed themselves to so deadly an occupation against the whims of so fickled a foe.

And so, when in the process of completing this secondary poem I found that I had to stop and lay down my pen for a time overcome by this horrific topic's brutish subject. I wanted to approach these young lives with a deftness of sympathy and heroism that it required as an ode to their human spirit of perseverance.  Moreover, a holistic ending needed to be found that was unlike its parts, but born from its parts, that might provide an adequate capstone of homage and requiem. Since then I have stayed away for nearly a year having not thought too much about this subject matter, allowing it to rest unresolved in my mind and heart like the furrowed gravesites that lie deeply silent in the tawny bunchgrass on a faraway hillside in Western Montana as I searched for answers that may not come. Amongst markers gathered in their solitary clusters keeping nightly watch beneath the starry heavens looking down from their evening wonders to behold the untold ruins of brave men resting as undaunted testaments to mankind's brave will forged within the hot kilns of creation's holy flames and pungent altars. Altars that no more rest than do our searching hearts, seeking acceptable sacrifices that only time eternal may someday provide as we cannot, bowed before our heavy offerings, made by human hands, broken and tearfully clasped. For no other offerings are so dear as those who are taken from us, whom we are helpless to aide in their suffering, except to give homage in lasting memorial to future generations of firefighters better equipped and trained through remembrance of the hard lessons of those who have gone on before. Courageous lives. Full lives. Lives ended too soon. That lead the way for those who survive that follow after behind their fire lines, and smoky trails, hearing upon our ear last calls echoing to one another against a tangled wilderness distantly crying "All's well."

- R.E. Slater

February 1, 2012
rev. April 6, 2012

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

The winged statue of victory stands in front of smoke from fires in the village of ancient Olympia,

near the birthplace of the Olympic games, in south-west Greece. A huge effort by firefighters,

water-dropping aircraft, and fire trucks, succeeded in keeping a raging blaze away from the

2,800-year-old site - the holiest sanctuary in ancient Greece.

An Unfinished Poem

Excerpt: Opening Lines

by R.E. Slater

Pray thee dark fire angels burning bright

Didst thou enter into redemption’s night
When glimpsing too soon creation’s fires
Then fell from earth in fervent rejoice?

At seeing the black heavens hotly ablaze
Roaring in ancient flames of heat and haze
Seething fiery whirls of immortal breath
Alit the turbulent winds of righteousness?

And didst the hot flames lure thy fearing tred
Overwhelming thy heart by jealous desire
Whilst racing to see stunning glories dred
Shaking the foundations in furious might?

And was it thy glad heart that joyfully leapt
Blazing hot from within thy bursting soul
Beholding Almighty’s hidden glories wept
Bowing rocks and hills in terrible flames?

Whose burning presence measures breath
Bringing all mortal works to ashes and ruin
Swirling His fires of destruction upon mortal sin
Destroying the days and nights of all living flesh?

.
.
.

- R.E. Slater

January 2011

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

RE Slater - The Concept of Justice

November saw me writing again but not like I had been the year before when I was hungry to write and felt more highly creative.  And yet, during the past months, I have added several new poems, though my main task had been to re-read and edit my finished poems after having printed them into a singular collection back in June. Currently I have read or edited the first third of my poems but have so many more to read and consider that I believe it will take another year or two while writing and developing newer poems during this same time period. Moreover, time and distance has allowed me a more dispassionate review of my work, as I consider (i) whether the material is "readable" and "understandable"; (ii) whether the themes have gotten lost in the words; and, (iii) whether the style or "synchronistic beat" of the verse is how it was intended to be.  Ideally, I do not wish to re-write any of these older poems, but some seem so awkward as to require another editorial visit before leaving them in a final, more publishable form.

Most recently I have been working on a single ode these past several months that has driven me to distraction. I cannot seem to find its voice. What is written has become too preachy, too strident. Many times I have thought about deleting the entire verse and walking away from it. It has become one of my least favorites poems after having promised so much when I first set about composing it. It's entitled "Behold The Ruins of Athens" which was an altogether original title for me until I looked it up after completing it to find George Hill's magnificent piece. Ah well, at least it was original in thought and production, making me glad that I had composed it first before seeing Mr. Hill's most excellent work.

In summary, "Athens" consists of two pages, and though short, it's subject matter felt quite dense and complex; refused to simplify itself; and demanded that the reader read slow down enough to think through the word pictures and ideas presented within its narrative in constructive, thoughtful, fashion.  In hindsight I had thought about pulling this poem apart and re-composing one or two of its major ideas, but instead plowed on to put all my emotions and thoughts into tightly constructed phrases while hoping for the best.

And because "Athens" is so blunt and massive in its structure I finally decided on reconstructing it through the course of several drafts, wishing to slow the reader down to hear what I was trying to say.  Thus, the poem's original form was in 2x6 line meter which I indented every second line.  But the lines were overlong like my "Stars and Moon" piece and so, after three months of re-writing it ad-nauseam I decided on an entirely new poetic verse structure.  At first I tried a simple 4-verse meter to replace every two lines of the ode.  But this didn't work and served to "mudge up" its flow and rhythm.  Next I tried doubling the 6-line meter into an extended 12-verse format. This I liked a lot but then I modified it again by adding a tabbed indentation to every second line and that seemed to do the trick. It slowed the reader down just enough to consider the words while not overwhelming the voice and rhythm of the poetic ode. In fact, it seemed to "stretch out" the complex of ideas that it holds while "simplifying" the poetic ode overall.

These changes further necessitated a re-composition of several other related odes  each as similar in thematic tone and structure. And eventually, because of their similar voices and contents I placed them all together, side-by-side,  under a new chapter-heading entitled "Of Justice, War and Anthems". Thus I have four separate pieces that address the concept of justice and our personal response-and-accountability for justice's conveyance within society each day of our lives. Where these emotions came from I'm not sure - maybe from acts of injustice I saw as a youth, or perhaps from my reading of the Christian bible, especially in the historical sections of the Old Testament. But whatever the reasonings, I have attempted to recall those early formative and raw emotions into these poetic sections as imperative catalysts for acts of justice to be committed in the world today.

As a child, the unfolding drama of the American/Vietnam War played itself out in daily black-and-white pictures through the eyes and ears of television's evening news, as it showed the horrors of war brought to both friend and foe alike. Further, the harm and devastation witnessed from civil riots and political rallies around the country created for some very intense emotions when watching or reading about young people dying in clashes with police, seeing the hippie movement's disgust with society at-large, and beholding intense racial clashes over segregation. This came home all the more when saying goodbye to dad as he went out into these civil disturbances as a policeman dressed in full riot gear as a former Korean War veteran.

Generally (and perhaps idealistically) as free societies, we must  actively advocate living peaceably with one another regardless of our differences; seeking and praying for peace and goodwill among men daily, especially during times of hatred, misunderstanding, and unrest; siding with victims of injustice harassed or harmed by societal fears and ignorance; and in everything determine to show love and support to everyone we meet through open and honest communications, fair trade, tolerance, mercy, and forbearance with one another.  Free societies demand no less a commitment and no higher a calling. We are called to bring peace to all, seek justice for all, and to serve the exquisite riches of liberty, democracy, and honor as equal recipients of humanity's burden and privilege.

The concept of justice is so plain a concept to understand - and so quick a feeling of empathy to arise within us - when couched in cultural or national tones of prejudice and hate. And though we may think we might understand its meaning, it isn't until we are personally confronted by injustices that what we believe is only then truly enacted into acts of real justice. Where individuals are disparaged, harmed, murdered, persecuted or oppressed, than our hearts - our very emotions - must become intolerant towards the purveyors of those atrocities. Whether committed by bullies, or gangs, or overlords; whether despots or tyrants; if "peace and goodwill" are terms brutally ignored then "acts of justice" will never be a societal, nor a personal commitment, to restoring its abuses and neglects.

Because of this, I've created my poetic odes to be more warlike, more strident, as "drumbeats" to a nation's heart desiring peace and goodwill among men.  They speak to justice when love seems to have failed, and they show very little toleration for those evil men and women who cruelly harm others. Likewise, the Christian bible is very clear how important the compact of justice is between individuals and societies. That there is very little room for denying its observation of human rights when those rights are either casually or violently ignored in both moral and ethical tones by individuals and human institutions, from local to international levels.  For the very concept of justice and love intermingle each with the other. More simply said, "Justice is love outwardly shown, while love is Justice inwardly found. They are one and the same."

And so, in some small way I hope that my poetic creations continue to preach the values of justice and love as I've written them without apology for the strong language and imperatives used. I wished for them to be independent voices to all men everywhere who strive towards a supremely human humanity. To be moral and ethical with one another. To seek the virtues of Love and Justice. To decry acts of inhumanity. To seek the humanness of man in  his every act of vice and virtue. It is sometimes said that man is but brute beast, yet at his most human when just and loving. Conversely, when man is not just and loving, than truly he is but merely a brute beast worthy of extinction, ruin and judgment.


R.E. Slater
November 2010

Dilemmas and Choices, Tiredness and Task

Early February 2010 has found me pressed by some kind of personal spiritual warfare which has become deeply besetting to my task at hand of writing finely and conscientiously. With it came time and money concerns that are ever my old nemesis and bearers of bad news. But on the upside, I received an unlooked-for invitation to a college luncheon to meet the university president and while there hope to speak to a professor I've long been considering to discuss a book project I have in mind. And whether he would be personally interested in collaborating on it with me. It'll take a year or so to write but I already have the notes completed and am guessing its length at about 250 pages, maybe 300 with footnotes, appendices and diagrams.  I could probably write this in a couple of weeks but am thinking that a schedule of one month per chapter theme may be a more reasonable goal. But before attending to this task however I would like to finish my remaining poetry sets that I've roughed out for completion. I expect that to be yet another year in the making. And so, time, time, time. So fickled, so pressing, so withdrawing and never friend.

Currently I'm finishing up a large body of poetic pieces which will take me through most of this year I believe.  And I've yet to find a publicist who could help me market my material successfully when I get these completed. It probably would help if I would look but it seems a large and disappointing task ahead of me at the moment.  I started writing for myself the last two years and believe that what I've written will inspire many who would read my material on a number of different levels and in a number of different areas of their life. Generally, I've written what I deem to be popular poetry and not cryptic poetry for every age - having written some pieces for kids and other pieces for adults; some for holidays, others for events; some for life stages and others for momentous times.  If anything, I wish I had more years to expand each select area I've written about, embellishing each area with more similar themes; especially fun/practical/whimsical pieces for kids and adults who are still exhilarating in their childhood at whatever age they may be.

Currently, I'm stuck in the middle of a prose piece which is atypically long (about 15pp) and grasping for clarity and direction. I call it "The Tapestry".  It's completely written through its first four sections but I intend to re-write parts of each as well as to add additional sections to it while re-orientating it away from the first half's western mindset couched in dualistic/dichotomous terms towards an eastern dualism focusing on the balance and harmony of the first half's themes.  It may then consist of two parts dealing with the same/similar subject matter but written paradoxically showing two sides of the same coin, as it were.  All of it couched in a storyline of mystery and "aha" moments.  Upon completion, it'll be the third piece complimenting two other pieces ("Stars and Moon," "Celtic Nights") which I've written, each as different in subject material and style as from the other, but forming a neat trilogy that I had never expected and only saw belatedly during their development.

This current prose piece is a dark read about fate and destiny, sovereignty and free will, determinism and choice couched in mythic Egyptian symbolism using Genesis as an overlay. The other two pieces deal with several other biblical themes of eschatology, harmatology and soteriology while utilizing either old English folklore or Celtic tones, and each set in allegorical or biblical parable format.  They are fun reads (esp. alone in the dark) and may mimic Edgar Allen Poe a little bit - but never as cleverly as he had done!! Beyond that, they require a bit more thinking amongst them and do not simply serve as idle tales in-and-of themselves for mere thrill.

However, between daily obstacles, demands, and necessities, I've found these past weeks a difficult run and it would be nice to find some funding and an office or cottage somewhere from which I may daily write that could produce inspiration to my weary soul, and that without interruption and with considered focus. It's hard to be creative when pressed by so much, and its hard to write everyday when I'm stretched by so many personal demands. Still, even when I don't feel like writing I've found that once I sit down to attend to the task at hand, that words and ideas will flow out from me, along with lots and lots of new material that someday I hope to develop. Which is all well and good, I suppose, but my frustration lies in the fact that I have so much to write about and constantly fight for the time to do this ungrateful, unending, undying task so well while so finely misunderstood and slighted by my fellow companions ignorant of its possible consequences and blessings. Its as perplexing some days as my would-be allegories.

As always,

Peace

RE Slater

February 9, 2010


Addendum

I did meet with the professor above and had a delightful time discovering an old friend made ever more close because of a common mentor and teacher each of us had studied under but at separate times. The bond was encouraging and his help both welcomed and professional as much as it was warm and personal. I couldn't have been more happy at this discovery. Now for ability and strength to begin this belated task of some 25+ years in the making.

First Christmas Update

I unfortunately got sidetracked by a commercial project the past 30 days and lost time writing.  Given the choice I'd rather have been writing but probably could've used the break... so I'm going with it.  A week ago or so I spent rearranging my titles list into a possible content structure and finished Flagpole Days, Autumn Harvest, Solitude, my Swahili poem, added a Carmina, tried to rewrite Hiawatha failing to find the rhythm or tone I wanted, and rewrote Painted Rooms again.

Looking forward, I have at least a dozen or so roughed-out poems I'd like to finish including four or five that are interconnected to a common theme, along with two legendary tales (one's quite lengthy).  I had hoped to get all of them done before Christmas and to book-bind them for my folks and family but can see now it'll be somewhere between March and July by the time I finish these.

It also seems that my creativity period has dried up as I search for better ways to express myself.  I'm going to take some time off to read a novel or two, and finish some other projects I have to do; maybe pick at things as I go along just to keep my hand in the task of writing and not get too far away from it lest I come to a stop altogether.  It's been a long 12 months.

My goal was a hundred pieces and I'm at 58 with 10-12 to go, making it 68-70.  I also have six completed short stories and another six I need to rewrite.  And then I have one very lengthy sports story I wrote a year ago which needs to be re-written in a different voice, as well as a theology book I've started.  But each time I do I get some personal disaster which pulls me away from it (which seems highly coincidental to me, as it's been a several year pattern ongoing).

My theology book consists of two major sections of 10-12 chapters each.  The first section is a teaching section and the second section reviews each previous chapter integrating them with one another.  I'm tracing major thematic elements between the testaments and tying them together to help simplify reading the Christian bible from its vast theological complexity.  It's mainly for my son and daughter as a biblical theological premier (not systematics theology but biblical theology).  Once it's written I have a theological professor in mind whom I wish to contact who teaches and thinks in the style as my beloved friend, and now deceased professor, Carl B. Hoch.  With his input I hope to remove inaccuracies and update it generally from someone much closer to the material than I currently am.

Overall, I like writing short stories, but I prefer the poetry format better because of all the many varieties that it allows for personal expression, creating new words and ideas, tone, coloring, shading, everything!  Sooo, I think I made a good start even though I'm short by 30 pieces, but its still enough to judge where I'm at and see if its any good (my general impression is that they each need a rewrite to sharpen up their tone and focus and readability) and whether they might stand up to reader interest or not.  I haven't tried a Shakespearan sonnet and would like to try that someday just to see if I can.  But with Flagpole Days I did try a running sentence broken into 12 verse sections and am quite pleased with its lilt and composition.  The thought occurred as I was listening to Mozart's Requiem which gave me the idea of seeing how many rounds/voices could be put into a musical piece and still get one overarching theme... I think he got up to 14 competing rounds/voices making for one massive sound which is exquisite to the ear held in rapture.

At this point I should probably find some outside opinions and a publisher to see what's next, though generally I find this a distasteful task and would rather not.  My knowledge of critics tells me to beware overvaluing their opinions... John Keats is a good example of perserverance by following heart/pen while allowing the task itself to resolve any future readership.  Too, I've only ever have written for me and my kids, but from the several people who have read them I think I should share them as they are generally liked, though I care not about this but whether they might add thought and contemplation as I speak my soul.  I do worry about how personal they are, but I'm sure every poet does. They are myself unsheathed as I can allow that task, and a reader will either like them or not. I cannot be anything less than myself and can only speak of what I hear and wish to write against the streams of humanity that sings its own songs alongside mine own.

RE Slater

December 10, 2009

Finding My Voice

Since last October of 2008 I have written as much as I have had time to - mostly poetry but a few short stories as well.  Through this process I have written what has been most important to me from years past but have known that these pieces would be a "developmental record" of my progress as a new writer formally seeking his own words and styles and thoughts.  I have consciously known that it will take some time for me to develop my writing style and have recently come upon a phrase most apt in describing my progress - that of "finding my own voice" as a poet and as a writer.  Too much of my style feels like it is narrative (though it isn't) and I should like to step back from that as much as I can, and perhaps read some poets to catch their style and help me in mine own more quickly.  But on this point I still refuse to read other poets so as to keep my words and thoughts fresh and essentially mine own and not theirs.  But lacking formal writing classes these past poets and writers may be of help to me and so, I shall intend to briefly explore some styles which appeal to me and my style, without straying too long in anyone matter for I still wish for my material to be fresh and original.

It is now mid-October of 2009 and I continue to push out at least one to three documents a week along with my other duties and commitments as husband, father, dutiful son, son-in-law, consultant, community services and so on.  Thus, I have many half-written pieces which I wish to go back and complete as newer pieces continue to cross my mind and heart - all of which takes time away from my effort in finishing my original drafts.  And since I do not wish to lose these creative moments, I try to capture them while attempting to finish my rough drafts as well.  This is proving to be a hard process which can easily overwhelm me amid the vicissitudes of life.

I also have a theology paper I wish to write up as a book and have started this task as well (again).  But each time that I have made a major attack to get it properly going I seem to experience some little personally upheaval in my life.  The thought has crossed my mine that it is not unlike being prevented by the devil because of the severity of these roadblocks.  But, I do not think my words are so important that they haven't been said before and require any devil for prevention.  However, it has been a very odd and coincidental experience.

The book itself is to be written in 2-parts - the subject matter itself and then the integration of those subjects with one another.  This project will encompass the dozen-or-so major themes of the bible (sic, pertaining to "biblical theology" not "systematic theology"... this is a BIG difference) as they cross between the testaments and are integrated with one another.  This subject was a major part of my training in college and later seminary, and I should've pursued a PhD in biblical studies on this but did not.  I had neither the money nor the will to study any further, being somewhat exhausted after years of study and needing to work.  But my boy has shown an interest in biblical knowledge and perhaps my primer could be useful both to him, his friends and any young would-be Christian theologs wishing guidance in thematic matters.  At least that is my hope.

And so, I have been tragically stopped again and am writing of more practical experiences and observations from my personal life into my poems and trying to mix my training with my writings.  Perhaps these "lesser" poetic pieces will be of more aide in the long run to the general reading public than a large stuffy book filled with important "theological" subject matter.  At least that is my hope and one of my purposes in writing... to get God into the details of life, including my own, failings and all, in as many ways as I can be creative and "non-Christian" about it.

RE Slater
October 28, 2009