{"id":2460,"date":"2016-01-22T12:41:43","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T20:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getlitfestival.org\/?p=2460"},"modified":"2016-01-22T12:41:43","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T20:41:43","slug":"tod-marshal-washingtons-poet-laureate-my-professor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/tod-marshal-washingtons-poet-laureate-my-professor\/","title":{"rendered":"Tod Marshall: Washington's Poet Laureate, My Professor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"todmarshall-fb\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Alex Baker<\/em><\/p>\n

Tod Marshall is Washington State\u2019s new Poet Laureate. And my professor.<\/p>\n

I was first in Dr. Marshall\u2019s Writing for Poetry class in Spring 2015. We were a tight knit group\u2014 able to joke around, but also critically discuss each other\u2019s work. Dr. Marshall played the role of mediator, observing and occasionally speaking, only then to direct or force us heighten our own thinking. One day he read us one of his poems, not to brag, but to teach, to inspire, to share\u2014 he seemed an equal as he stood at the front of the room, reading his published and praised poem, while ours sat in piles in front of us, marked with revisions.<\/p>\n

I am currently enrolled in Dr. Marshall\u2019s American Lit class with a visionary theme. Our latest endeavor was Hart Crane\u2019s \u201cTo Brooklyn Bridge,\u201d which I found difficult. I admitted this to Dr. Marshall.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, this poem was hard to understand. I had no idea what I was reading,\u201d I told him during class.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I ask you a follow up question?\u201d Dr. Marshall said, standing back on his heels; he always walks around the classroom, wandering down the aisles, bouncing from one end of the room to the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy was it difficult?\u201d<\/p>\n

We exchanged a couple more sentences, me explaining my confusion and him supporting me, reminding our class about his excessive \u201cobsession\u201d with his poem during his Graduate and Doctoral theses. \u201cIt\u2019s still hard for me now. I still have to look up words and think about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This is a glimpse of the humility in Dr. Marshall, and with that, the equal ground he stands on with his students, possibly also his colleagues, the other writers he meets, and poets at large.<\/p>\n

Dr. Marshall continued the class discussion. When he noticed I didn\u2019t have a copy of the poem in front of me, he grabbed his extra book and held it out for me, his thumb open to the poem. It was a small gesture and not at all a means to condemn me, but rather to help me, to engage with me, to let me stand on that equal ground.<\/p>\n

In Spark Mag<\/a>, Dr. Marshall said, \u201cWhen I meet people through the state\u2026 I hope to reinforce a message that as children they probably took for granted: their voices, their words, their songs of the self, are important and need to be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whenever I interact with Dr. Marshall, I feel that this idea is present. The way he supports and genuinely connects with me is equal to the people who surround me in class, the numerous other students who walk into his office or send him an email. We are all equals, whether he\u2019s reading his award-winning poetry aloud or handing over a book, there we stand together.<\/p>\n

Yet, even then, what we earn is our own. Dr. Marshall earned his new appointment at Poet Laureate and for that I send him my congratulations. Oh, and I\u2019ll bring my book to class next time.<\/p>\n

Tod Marshall earned his Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Eastern Washington University and a PhD from University of Kansas, where he is from. His works include Bugle, The Tangled Line<\/em>, and Dare Say<\/em>. He lives in Spokane, WA where he is a Professor at Gonzaga University.<\/p>\n

For more information on his recent appoint and other successes check out Spark<\/a>, Gonzaga University News<\/a>, and the Inlander<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alex Baker Tod Marshall is Washington State\u2019s new Poet Laureate. And my professor. I was first in Dr. Marshall\u2019s Writing for Poetry class in Spring 2015. We were a tight knit group\u2014 able to joke around, but also critically discuss each other\u2019s work. Dr. Marshall played the role of mediator, observing and occasionally speaking, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":924,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":[],"_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/getlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}