fall 2013 7 THE READERS WRITE Meditations By Ryan Coffey Bellarmine Magazine, Bellarmine University 2001 Newburg Road Louisville, Ky 40205 letters@bellarmine.edu or 502.272.7492 Teaching online As one of the very first university professors in Hawaii to go online and then online-only in the early and mid ’90s with a series of literature and creative writing classes, I was intrigued with your article (“Sage on the Stage Taps into Apps,” Summer 2013). I lectured extensively in the ’90s about the pro/cons of such delivery, always stressing how software allowed the courses to be student-centered. I started with just email and eventually morphed into a multi-media instructor needing only the vast resources of my MacBookPro. I taught courses statewide and to students in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, including Hawaii students in Iraq. It was an exhilarating teaching experience, and one that got me much closer to more students than the traditional classroom where only a handful would participate regularly. I just taught my very last online class, as travel and work abroad will take up my time. However, in my classes in Shanghai this fall, students will be required to use my Internet page for posting/editing and sharing work with each other – opening educational possibilities for writing that these Chinese students have never experienced. I hope to get to Bellarmine soon to see all the new facilities. Keep up the good work! Vincent Linares Shanghai Write to us @ I. sitting somewhere in meditation— forgot about the pain, not being flexible and all— many voices laughing, gonna hurt when mind comes back. II. meditating in a doorframe, pain developing in toes against the wall— embrace it, forget it much more coming III. patience lasted, lasts, gonna have to last IV. so little to know to be free V. anyone listening anymore not so confused by the rattlesnake VI. everything— tiny little orbits VII. mirrors, and the bears in them— a struggling me in the middle VIII. shapes, and the implications with them— somewhere, a dying mouse IX. mountains in the fog— a laugh echoing through the valleys, closer…closer… …something to show you— X. happy to sit in engagement with all XI. not sure what is happening in the world anymore— then again never was XII. silence came and heated the mind— been boiling me down ever since XIII. ignorance is bliss, and knowing is madness XIV. getting better here in a tree growing toward the light XV. mind says— step outside with me body in dilemma mind chuckling XVI. Hey…hey you. What is all this? Let’s go together toward whatever awaits. Ryan Coffey ’07 was a soccer star, a woodworker, a builder of homes for the poor, and a poet. He died of cancer in 2012 in Cincinnati, at the age of 27. Here at Bellarmine, fellow alums have been working to memorialize Ryan with a project that includes the publishing of a book of poems, the planting of a tree on campus and the crafting of a bench to place under the tree as it grows into its full, shade-giving potential.
Bellarmine Magazine_Fall2013_Web
To see the actual publication please follow the link above