"Math Trauma" -- by Chase Twichell

MATH TRAUMA

If you liked geometry,
it meant you were a prude.
Girls who liked algebra put out.
The cool girls (I was not one)
sat cloistered, passing notes
and scoring high on tests.

The first time Mom and Dad split up,
kids from down the block and I lit the dry field
behind the development, then with wet towels
beat back the racing edge on the verge of panic
until we were sure it was out.
I always got that feeling from math.

I writhed like a snake over coals
if it came near me.
Mrs. X, drunk the year we did
multiplication and division,
never checked our workbooks
so no one ever saw the horses
where the answers should have been.
That’s when I first wandered off into
the white pastures on my own,
with nothing but a spiky quiver of words
and an urgent question.

--Chase Twichell,
from Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been,
Copper Canyon Press, 2010

"Like a Whole Soul in My Hands" -- Chase Twichell, Her Father, and a Trout

SORRY

I'm to press the pad of my thumb
against the trout's upper jaw,
its teeth surprisingly sharp,
more like berry cane than teeth,
its eyes already beginning to look back
from the afterlife.  It's limbless,
like a whole soul in my hands,
and slimy, so I clamp it
with my knees to get a better grip
and use both thumbs
to force back the jaw until the spine
breaks slowly, like a green stick,
and the jaws half close
as if by failing memory.
Then later in the sink we slit
open the belly, strip out the guts,
see if it's male or female,
see what it's eaten.  If it's female
Dad clicks sorry his tongue.

--Chase Twichell

from Dog Language
Copper Canyon Press,
2005

Crossley-Holland's 'Leaf-Girl'

LEAF-GIRL

'Round and round the trampled 
ground between the flaming
maple and the black walnut,
and out across the nickel rink 
to the winter warming-hut,
round, round with bounds and 
yells, skips and little rushes 
you chased October leaves.

Curtsy, shout, leap and spin, 
your pale face thin and hair 
haywire, the best red-gold:
so you became the leaves 
you caught. And watching you 
I think I thought there's 
some movement, some pursuit 
best expressing each of us.'

--Kevin Crossley-Holland

Annotations: Castro, Charton & Tietjen, & Chase

Castro, Peter, and Michael E. Huber.  Marine Biology.  7th ed.  Boston: McGraw Hill, 2007.

This is the text assigned by Dr. Bibit Traut and Dr. Dean Lauritzen for the Fall 2008 Bio 32: Marine Biology, the class I took during my sabbatical.  These two instructors team-taught the course, and they are lively, worthy lecturers.

I own the first edition of Marine Biology, and I can attest that this 7th edition is a wonderful improvement over a solid original text.  Castro and Huber write clearly, and their textbook offers appropriate illustrations and organization.    As a student somewhat familiar with the subject, but still new to many aspects of this complex field of exploration and discovery, I was very pleased by this text.  

Charlton, Barbara, and John Tietjen.  The Facts on File Dictionary of Marine Science.  New York: Facts on File, 1988.

When I wanted to check specific terms of marine science and I didn't have access to the internet, this is the book that I turned to.  Often, I have needed fuller explanations, but to get the basics quickly, this has been a handy reference.  I was glad I had the book, though I don't know whether I would recommend it.

Chase, Owen.  Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whaleship Essex.  New York: Lyons, 1999.

A classic presentation, especially for anyone interested in whales, whaling, or Melville's Moby Dick.   I picked up this book on all three accounts, but also because the 19th century is yet another fascinating century for study.  (Aren't they all?)  Yes, here we have evidence that a whale really did sink a whaleship.  Chase's account, written in 1821, is readable and gripping, a nice antidote to the poisonous claim that everything written in previous centuries is unnecessarily long-winded and lacking grip.