When my employer, the Center on Reinventing Public Education, moved its institutional home from University of Washington to Arizona State University, I almost didn't make the transition with it. Not because I was unhappy at my place of work; actually, I had found the Center, woman-led and tenacious in its efforts to improve public education for all students, to be much aligned with my personal goal of leaving the world better than I'd found it. I also found that there was plenty of potential for growth and opportunity to expand my skill set with the org. My hesitation was that of a different nature...an egotistical one.
Arizona State University, as far as I [an intellectual brought up twelve minutes from UC Berkeley] was concerned, was a party school. That was the reputation assigned to it as I studied creative writing and africana studies at San Francisco State. After graduation, I fumbled around for a bit as any creative writing major in her early twenties, before I began working in institutions of higher learning. On college campuses, I was at home amongst fellow nerds.
Working in higher education was an education unto itself. I had the good fortune to be hired at institutions with reputations far exceeding the borders of their campuses. In Columbia's Office of Alumni & Development, I learned how to navigate relationships with deans and alumni from nine different schools. In Stanford University's Office of Undergraduate Admissions, I planned student admit receptions and supported a team of five women. At Seattle University, I did a deep dive on university accreditation processes within the Office of Strategic Planning, before landing at CRPE, a research center situated within University of Washington.
Why would one go from elite institutions to one with a reputation of being a party school, led the train of thought, even as our Director vetted institutions from Harvard to Oregon State and announced our new home to be ASU.
Well.
Our Center, albeit in a remote capacity, has been at Arizona State University for nearly two years, and in that time, I have found the public research university to be true to its charter: the school moves relentlessly toward innovation. ASU has impact in more ways I imagined possible, from space missions to water preservation to creative writing. During a recent weekend, I witnessed firsthand one of the many "gumbo pots" this institution of higher learning has its hands in, as I attended the Desert Nights, Rising Stars writers conference.
During the pandemic, I began a book club at our organization, and lead willing members of our team through seven books by BIPOC authors. I had been looking for a new book to lead our colleagues through as we were continually inundated with trauma from the pandemic, George Flloyd's murder era and the insanity of the Trump years, all at once. I knew we had to begin to look toward poetry.
Because the book club intentionally centered BIPOC authors, Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo, the first Native Poet Laureate of the United States, came into my radar. Crazy Brave is actually one of Harjo's memoirs, but alas, it is poetry. Harjo is a knower, one who sees beyond this world to the next, and then has the nerve to write about it. In times of intense heartbreak, or as Joy Harjo said, "in times when there are no words" poetry is one of the only things that speaks.
Her work helped to create space in our beings when we most needed it.
It was for this reason, when an email found its way into my inbox announcing the Desert Nights, Rising Stars writers conference featuring the Poet Warrior I had to not only open it, but I knew I had to attend the creative writing conference.
Joy Harjo speaking at a writers conference at my place of employment? Um, yes, please.
This post is getting too long, so will have to be "to be continued." For now, I will leave you with a teaser trailer.
I arrived in Arizona in the dark, dry night of the desert. The red dust swirled through the air with a foreign sweetness as the Uber driver steered us towards the hotel. "Street sweeper must have just come through," he advised, rolling up the windows.
By the time I would leave that arid climate four days later, a stream from somewhere deep inside of me would be bubbling up like the fountain in front of the Alumni center. Out of that source unknown would come currents from deep within, spilling out writing repressed by grief and pain.
I can admit when I am wrong. Those sun devils sure are up to something out there in the desert.
Copyright Heather Casimere, October 2023
Wow, sounds like a dream of a retreat- the location, the speaker, the movement to your own words. I'm glad the shift was a pleasant experience!