An All Purpose Magical Tent, or, A New Old English Poet's Blog

[picture: Old English...or was it French...in New York. The Cloisters in Late Summer]

I miss blogging. Since the beginning of this school year, I've been learning on a number of levels -- learning how to be a "doctoral candidate"; learning how to write a dissertation; learning how to be a better teacher; learning how to be an organizer in the department; learning how to balance an Old English single-author blog with a medieval group blog (a task I'm always grateful for); learning how to find ways of exercising mind, heart and body that fit in ways that complement, rather than detract from, one another.

And it's April. Finally. The winter here in NYC appears to be abating, and by this time tomorrow I'll have written something that will vaguely resemble the first chapter of my dissertation. I've finally identified my Growing Pains again, and realized that that's the hard part about experiencing them: you never know when they're going to come back, and each time you experience them, it's something completely new and overwhelming.

But today I had an Epic Realization, and remembered that they too are like growing pains. Each time you experience them, it's just like the first time you realized. And my Epic Realization was this: what makes this work worthwhile are the people I've met doing it. My colleagues here at ITM -- co-bloggers and comment-ers alike! -- are a big part of that: the conversation that unfolds here is teaching me how to be a better, more humane academic, and teaching me how I want to see the field unfold as I begin to enter into it in a real way.

However, I'm also blessed with a number of talented colleagues here at Columbia, and it's my great pleasure to introduce one of them who has just (and finally!) started a blog of his own. Of course, an introduction isn't really necessary: you all know him already. LJS, of Monster Theory fame, has not only published his new chapbook but has also built an All Purpose Magical Tent. I'm psyched that LJS is joining the blogosphere, and am looking forward to seeing the ways he will bring together his poetry and his prose, and through the magic of the internet, bring them to us.

Welcome to the blogosphere, LJS!

cross posted at ITM