Debate '04 @ U of Miami

On this historic night at the university I teach I watched John Kerry trounce George W. Bush in the first debate of this important election. The day before, my colleague (fiction writer) Evelina Galang and I sat in the middle of the audience of the live TV show called Cross Fire on CNN. With all the excitement going around I began to really absorb the historic proportions this event would have in the Presidential race, and as a consequence, the history of the world. Big claim but this debate will be looked at as the turning point of a failing campaign. How was it trying to teach poetry these past two weeks leading up to the debate? I shifted my syllabus a bit and added a couple of classes on writing political poetry. I had both my grad and undergrad students read several examples of political poems and I also had them write political poems for workshop. My students came up with some exciting poems!