The most prestigious writing award I ever won was for a story I wrote in high school called “Pity the Unicorns.” Scholastic gave me an “Honorable Mention” and included it in their annual writing journal. My school sent the announcement to my brother instead of to me. He passed it along, making sure to make…
Author: Clio
the screen disappeared
miss the phone and miss the starwaiting by the balcony this week seems anxious:any hint of something coming up outside? only for a minute carefully he had to seethrough the worst:everything means nothing and “i can’t be a madman asleep.” (Found on page 45 of “The Last Tycoon”) Clio 11.04.21
Arithmetic and Operations
This is a “what-if” document. It’s not intended as a serious suggestion for how we should write mathematical notation or for replacing current notation, but rather an exploration of how things might work if mathematical notation had developed in a different way. Do I want to develop this further? I don’t know yet. But this…
Protected: I Sing Last, Not For Tears
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
In (Partial) Defense of Butterflies
Teaching students how to add fractions can be a real struggle. A big part of this is that we tend to get conceptually complicated about what fractions are. And a big part of this is because fractions can be conceptually complicated. I teach Algebra II. (For an elementary teachers reading this, though, hold on: I’m not…
Options, not Preferences
This morning I saw a tweet that implied that cis people who use “(he/they)” or “(she/they)” in their email signatures but who present in a way that matches their gender are being opportunistic. One reply referred to it as virtue signaling, and another mocked someone who said their pronoun is “she” but that neutral pronouns…
On the bread and circuses of “Squid Game”
So, last week, we watched Squid Game. Spoiler alert: Non-specific reference to the ending below. Let me get this out of the way: The program was very well written. I didn’t really find the themes particularly original. The very idea of “bread and circuses” goes back thousands of years, and a glossy production (estimated budget…
The Worst Poems
the worst poemis the poem left unwrittenheld so close to the chest that it suffocatesbefore it can whisper its truth the second worst poemis written from complianceits voice restricted by the demandsof someone else’s rules poems are butterfliespoems are demonspoems are the soul reaching outscreamingcooingdemandingrequestingexisting do not kill the butterfliesdo not silence the demonslet them…
The Cycle Must Be Broken
i am from a long line of oppressors who built this countrywith bricks and glass carved (but not by themselves)from the mountains and the seasides of a stolen land i am from a suffocating fear of god not from fire and brimstonebut from the quiet and righteous disdain of “we’re better than you are” i…
Your Portrait
i painted your portraitin words on paper,in measured beatsdrawn taut acrossa bland white canvas it didn’t look like you:you cannot be held so easilyin words;the flesh of treesdenies your complexity and so, resigned,i colored in the edgesi connected the lettersi scratched away the details and when i leaned back and squintedi realized the face i…