Spicaresque:

A Spanglish blog dedicated to the works, ruminations, and mongrel pyrotechnics of Yago S. Cura, an Argentine-American poet, translator, publisher & futbol cretin. Yago publishes Hinchas de Poesia, an online literary journal, & is the sole proprietor of Hinchas Press.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

THE RUBBERROOM FOR SALE


This is my Rubberroom. If you would like it to become your Rubberroom, please send check or money order for five dollars to

Yago Cura
112 Odell Clark Place, Apt.#5D
NYC, NY 10030.

The Rubberroom is a colletion of poetry about the reassigment centers that NYC's Department of Education uses to administratively punish teachers that have been arrested or accused of committing a crime.

I spent two weeks there in 2004 but was helped along by various people who saw that a wrong was being committed. But I was extremely lucky. Supposedly, there are teachers who have been at these reassignment centers, or Rubberrooms, for years.

My Rubberroom is a cycle of poems written like a play. The plot is driven by acts and scenes and there is one narrator that monologues his way to understanding the motives behind the actions that landed him in the Rubberroom.

My Rubberroom has been passed around public high schools in the Bronx by first year teachers, administrators, and haggard veterans. I addressed the 2005 and 2006 class of NYC Teaching Fellows at Lehman College, and my story comprised the much larger story titled "Human Resources" that aired on This American Life in February of 2008.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Rubber room= Gold status

It will be passed around the haggard, I mean, hallowed PS subterraneans who knows what is is.

I remember when I received it in the mail in '05. I read it straight through, my hands trembling.