Cathlin Goulding: One of Oakland's Gems

Cathlin Goulding

There’s a certain magic found in educators who write, and Cathlin Goulding is a magician among the lot of beleaguered souls inundated with both teaching and writing. I’ve been hearing a lot about this Oakland resident. As an educator, Goulding’s been leading the way at Newark Memorial High School with her innovative methods of teaching poetry to her college prep learners. And as a poet, Cathlin has published her work through several literary journals. Most recently, Goulding’s work was accepted to be included in the Kearny Street Press anthology I Saw My Ex At A Party. Additionally, Goulding recently read her work to an eager audience during the annual Litquake Festival in San Francisco.

I wanted to learn more about Goulding and what drives her as an educator and a writer. Soon enough, Goulding and I agreed to meet at the L’Amyx Tea Bar in Oakland. Upon arriving, I ordered a mocha and found a cozy table near the back of the tea bar. Minutes later, Goulding walked in baring a pleasant smile. She ordered a chai tea and joined me at the table. As soon as she sat, I could immediately sense that this was to be an enjoyable conversation between two enthusiasts of writing. As we exchanged the traditional formalities of greetings and small talk, for some peculiar reason, my right hand began to gravitate under the table, awkwardly feeling along the contour of the bottom edges. I then became disgusted. I had touched something damp and repulsive. It was someone’s used chewing gum. Goulding hadn’t noticed a thing. I pulled slowly away and quickly stole a glance under the table toward my right hand. I had now produced the spider-web affect of gum on all my fingers.

How embarrassing! 

SUMMER BLONDE by Adrian Tomine 

I collected myself and decided to be as professional as possible, so I began our interview in haste:

“So what book(s) are you reading right now?” I inquired while I secretly rolled the sticky gum into a small ball under the table.

Goulding launched a hulking smile and submitted with enthusiasm: “I just went to the Alternative Press Expo in the city this past weekend . . . It was all zines, graphic novelists and cartoonists. And that’s a lot of what I’m reading these days.” She laughed with slight embarrassment. “I don’t know if it’s because I have no stamina for paragraphs.” I smiled back, though I wasn’t giving her the full attention she rightly deserved. As I continued with my gum dilemma, Goulding continued her thoughts on graphic novelists: “One of my favorite graphic novelists is Adrian Tomine. He’s half Japanese, half Caucasian, like me. He writes a lot of stories on indie rockers in their twenties. He has this comic series called Optic Nerve. It’s great to read because of all these East Bay locations. One of my favorite books of his is Summer Blonde. I always read that one over and over again . . . I tend to like realistic graphic novels.”

ANNIE HALL by Woody Allen 

I nodded my head in appreciation of her response, as well as the fact that I’ve almost wrapped up the mess with my gummy fingers. I leaned forward and asked: “You’re an established high school educator of poetry, and your work has been published through many journals. What comes to mind when you hear that old  cliché: ‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach’?”

She again laughed, sipped her chai tea and responded: “First, I think of the movie Annie Hall and what was said about ‘Those who can’t teach, teach PE.’ ” Goulding then shook her head as a sign that she was only kidding. Quickly enough, she composed herself and responded in earnest: “I’ve always considered myself an educator first and a writer second. I was in my undergrad at UC San Diego, and I was studying writing and a lot of people in my classes were applying to MFA programs or PhD programs in Literature, and I couldn’t see myself taking that route because it didn’t seem practical to me, and it didn’t seem oriented toward social justice or civil service. Those are two things that are really important to me. So being a teacher, I wanted to weld those two ideas and become someone who works to promote literacy — the power of writing and reading . . . ” It was a nice response, and it was moving to hear a teacher’s sentiment toward such issues.

Because the gum was completely removed from my right hand, I was now able to publicly reach for my mocha. After I sipped, I inquired: “What impresses you most with poetry composed by high school students?”

“I think what always impresses me about my students is that they can generate an amazing amount of work — it almost spills out of them. And when you see them on a stage and they’re reading their work for the first time, it’s a real transformative experience, and that’s what’s really exciting.” Goulding nodded in reflection. Her eyes trailed off a bit to celebrate a moment of appreciation toward her students.

Another mocha sip, and then: “So by the time your students complete your college prep poetry course, is there anything you hope that they take with them?”

Another smile ballooned on Goulding’s lips. With grace, she replied: “The class goal is to get them to see themselves as a poet, as a writer. If they can have that identity by the end of the year, that’s my hope. It’s not to teach the history of poetry or understand every living poet out there.”

William Wordsworth

I then asked: “Honestly, who’s one poet you feel high schools should teach less of, not to discredit the writer by any means. But is there a poet English classes should start to move away from?”

“Interesting question,” Goulding paused. “I hate to mention these poets because I really appreciate their work, but I feel we over-teach Edgar Allan Poe, or a lot of the traditional canon like Yeats or William Wordsworth. Sometimes I get the feeling that my students feel poetry is owned by white British poets."

I smiled in agreement. It was a strong point many high school educators would defend. Shifting the conversation, I asked: “So I Googled your name and a lot of links popped up, it was page after page. Is there a poet you feel high school readers need to Google?”

Charles Bukowski

Quickly she shot back with a smile: “I have always really loved Charles Bukowski. He’s one of my favorites.”

I interjected: “Look at you! The latter-day Beat! Any favorite book?” My smile was equal to hers.

“The Last Night of the Earth Poems.”

I thought to myself: “Great answer.”

“So, why did you start writing poetry?” I asked with curiosity.

There was a slight pause of nostalgic wonder, then Goulding submitted: “I had a high school writing teacher named Mr. Kinberg. And he was the first one who taught me poetry as a unit, and contemporary poetry . . . He introduced me to Sylvia Plath. He let us write our own poetry, and I still have those poems . . . They were so over-written. They had way too many adjectives and they’re vague. Yeah, I still have them and keep them for amusement.”

“When’s an ideal time for you to sit down and compose your thoughts?” I asked after quick sip of mocha.

“I’m a real night owl. I stay up very, very late, which is bad because I have to wake up at 5:30 for school. So I’d say I write best around midnight, or one in the morning,” Goulding stated with pride.

I continued: “Who or what influences your writing?”

Goulding responded with a slightly reserved smile: “I’m very influenced by humor writing, people like Woody Allen or David Sedaris. I wanted to be a humor writer and make people laugh, even though I’m seen as very serious or studious. I’d like to be sarcastic and sly. That’s what really inspires me to write.”

“Of the countless emotions we humans experience daily, are there any emotions you try to invoke within your readers, other than humor?” I inquired next.

Cathlin Goulding

“Other than humor?” Goulding pondered, “I always admire when writing makes you feel a sense of wistful melancholy, to where you’re only half smiling. I used to read a lot of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And he had the kind of writing that would make you laugh, but it still had its poignancy. So I think that’s what I hope someday to achieve through my writing, that you make people laugh, but at the end of the story you’ve hit them hard with some sort of feeling of sadness.”

Goulding’s hands quickly shot up in a sign of high excitement: “Yes! Yes, I had a zine once called Freeze Dried Noodle. It was about Asian supermarkets. I’ve always wanted to take that work and polish it. It’s a collection of essays and stories . . .”

It was a nice note to end on.

We finished our drinks and exchanged a few more pleasantries on a manner of social topics. We walked out of the L’Amyx Tea Bar and onto the cold Oakland streets that house dozens of souls just like Cathlin Goulding — and that’s an exceptional thing to say for teachers who write.

The following is a non-fiction piece by Cathlin Goulding:

“What Ever Happened to Nancy Kwan?”

I started obsessively watching old movies at an early age.  I watched most on classic movie television, available commercial free on basic cable, after I came home from school.  One of my first films was The Heiress where Olivia de Havilland carried a single lantern up a darkened stairwell, slowly escalating from the cries of her jilted lover.  Then there was Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame who braved the sidesaddle and repeatedly exclaimed that “life’s a banquet—and some poor suckers are starving to death!” while flourishing her black lacquered cigarette holder.  I watched Aretha Franklin’s knockout performance of “Think” to a stunned Murphy Dunne in The Blues Brothers and Cleavon Little became in the first black sheriff in a Wild West town in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles. 

But the film that has stayed with me the longest is Rodger and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song.  I was seven or eight years old when I first saw it.  My mother had bought home a copy of the movie—it had been one of her favorites.  In the musical, Nancy Kwan danced in the Chinese New Year Parade in a satin yellow dress and three inch heels.  San Francisco was a gleaming, polished city of elaborate Japanese gardens, Chinese nightclubs, and pleasant vistas where one could park a zippy yellow convertible.  It was a city where the new generation cheerfully assimilated into American society while their parents begrudgingly accepted their use of American slang.  Auntie Liang quipped that living in the United States was like chop suey while young Chinese American teens danced the cha-cha, shimmied down the line during the Virginia Wheel, and praised “ball point pens and filter tips, lipsticks and potato chips.” 

Years later, I saw the film again for a media studies course in college.  I had forgotten about it—Linda Low and Sammy Fong had become a distant childhood memory.  Under the guidance of a professor, we dissected the gender and racial stereotypes portrayed in the film, questioned the messages being sent as Nancy Kwan preened in front of a mirror singing, “I Enjoy Being a Girl.”  I watched Nancy Kwan’s long brown hair, her almond shaped eyes, the blend of her Asian and Caucasian features.  Our professor explained how most of the actors in the film were not Chinese—most of the actors were Japanese American; and Juanita Hall, a black actress, had played the role of Auntie Liang.  It was not the same film to me anymore.  San Francisco was a Hollywood movie set; Nancy Kwan was a “strictly female female” hoping to be “in the home of a brave and free male.”  The happy vision of America as Melting Pot unsettled me.

Sometimes I imagine what it must have been like for my mother to watch Flower Drum Song as a young woman.  She had grown up in a working class neighborhood in Los Angeles, in a green one-story house her family moved into after they returned from the interment camps.  I think about my mother who married my father, the son of an Irish Catholic meatpacker, of her having children that looked nothing like her, of our Thanksgiving turkey that was served with miso soup and yaki soba.  I think of my mother watching this film, watching Juanita Hall sing “Chop Suey,” watching the young Japanese American actors square dance in satin dresses, and wonder if she too had seen a vision of herself in the film.