First Class Day at Penn

Yes, this is a photo of San Francisco, just beneath that great and golden bridge, and yes, Penn is urban and east coast and miles from any bay. But this photo is the right photo for my present mood, for I've just returned from the University of Pennsylvania, my alma mater, where I travel now not as student, but as teacher.

Those of you who follow this blog know how many different ways I've danced the syllabus through. You know how many books I re-read before selecting passages to share ("Autopsy Report," by Lia Purpura; a snatch of Livinia Greenlaw: the opening homage to a photograph in Jayne Anne Phillips' Black Tickets). You know how much music I listened to before I chose the songs that would inspire a piece about weather and mood, (a Soweto Gospel Choir classic) or the jib and jab of conversation ("Arrimate Paca" by Eliades Ochoa). But what you didn't know, perhaps, was how eager I was to meet the students, whose work I had the privilege of reading over this summer.

Today I met the students. They are as fine as the weather we were granted.