You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
The current issue of Rattle, a poetry magazine, is devoted to adjuncts -- poetry both by them and about them. In “The Adjunct’s Villanelle,” for example, Anna M. Evans, a poet who has taught writing at Stockton University, wrote, in part:
You just come in and teach, then you can go,
she says, distracted by her tenure file.
I wish someone would tell my students so.
From there I leave to meet with one who’s slow
to understand the work. It takes a while
to teach him what he needs. Then, I can go.
Another texts: the fetus didn’t grow.
She’s on bed rest for weeks. Can I compile
the work she’ll miss? I can, and tell her so.
The issue also features an extended conversation with Jennifer Jean, a poet and essayist who teaches English classes at Boston-area universities. “You have to create a strong community and invest in adjuncts, which is your biggest faculty pool -- and not just give them office space,” Jean says. “I hate to say this, but I couldn’t care less about office space. I can meet someone in a coffee shop. But I would like sustainability; I would like equitable pay. I would like to know that I have a genuine shot at a full-time gig. And I want to feel like I’m someone they think is worth investing in.”
