first arrival, age 6
Field trip with Mr. Pelligrino
grad school
Latin dance competition
English prof and coach
Big Bend
with cousin Cindy
U Mass, Boston
Poetry workshop
my son, Chris and me
Chris and Pam, MA
Chris, all grown up
Me and mom, Austin, 2012

 

 

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Pamela Annas grew up in the Navy, constantly moving from country to country. She chased spawning grunion across the beach in southern California, went to first grade in post WWII Japan, lived for two years in a village in Turkey, snuck over the fence into the Cow Palace in San Francisco to cheer her roller derby team on Friday nights, and graduated from high school in Yokohama, Japan, into an era of burning draft cards and Vietnam war protests.

This is the bio I often use for poetry readings. How we grow up matters. Though it's been 50 years since my military brat childhood, this is still a crucial fact in my life.

After leaving our last base in Misawa, Japan, I went stateside to college: a year at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, NY, then 3 years at State University of New York at Buffalo for a degree in English. I accepted a fellowship to Indiana University, Bloomington, and emerged with Ph.D.

I took a job at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Wow! New England. I have loved working with the students here—a collection of ethnically diverse, mostly working-class students, average age of 25. I worked my way up to Professor and along the way was Director of the American Studies Program on Nantucket for 3 years, Director of the M.A. in English Program for 5 years, and spent my last 6 years at UMB as Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. The rest of the time I was happily teaching a variety of courses in 20th century literature—modern and contemporary poetry, American working-class literature, science fiction, the 1930's—and in writing—memoir, poetry, composition. Along the way, I've published a few books and a number of articles and poems.

My son Chris is 22 and just graduated with a BFA from University of North Carolina School of the Arts. This feels like a milestone in my life as well as his. He will be in Washington D.C. this year working as a Fellow at the Kennedy Center for the Arts in theatrical light and set design.

I retired a year ago and have been enjoying the freedom quite a bit. I've picked up my swing and ballroom dancing again and I have more time to write. This first year of retirement has felt transitional and developmental. What will I do next? The possibilities are intriguing.

Here's a relatively new poem, not yet published. I include it because the experience may resonate in our collective memory.

The Orders Arrive

Time to pack. Again.
To unhinge ourselves from friends.

The funny mutt we raised
has disappeared. No room

for my stash of comic books
and Mads. They're burning

in the trash pit in the quad
where kids already stare past us

as my brother and I cling
to each other in the nation

of in between,
trying not to throw up.

Military Air Trans plane
a box of roar

pressed against our feet
cardboard suitcases

metal trunks, a book
of fairy tales I clutch

as we touch down in Alaska
rush through the airport

past a grizzly bear, stuffed,
whose shiny eyes track us to Japan

to housing just the same
but freshly painted. Another country

we'll learn to love and leave.

Pam

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