It's nice to see a thread of homages to high-school English teachers. I
had some great ones. Unfortunately, in this country at least, many of
them seem not to be doing their jobs (or to be incapable of doing their
jobs, or not allowed to do their jobs. Or the job itself has been
dreadfully redefined). With the results at college level immortalized
below. Hope you enjoy. Warning: this poem may seem a bit ... incorrect
- insufficiently Rousseauean, perhaps, or deaf to the life-affirming
vitality of rock.


Introduction to Literature


I wanted to
avoid this topic. Even the vast
majority of poets, who teach
regularly, have, for the most part,
more pride. Or perhaps it's that cultural blind-spot,
the Details of Work. But for a long time
I wondered what my freshmen
are. A poll at the start of the semester found
they have never willingly read
anything. Half of them want to be "successful";
a third "haven't a clue"; the rest seem to feel they can segue
directly from playing video games to
designing them. In the fifth week I say, "Programming
involves logic.
Grammar is logic." Perhaps it would have helped
earlier. But I find those great lines
of Enzensberger's, *They understood
what he was telling them. They did not understand
him*, are insufficiently critical … Oh those
wandering "it"s, those misused possessives,
the random changes of tense indicating,
perhaps, that school is outside time,
the sudden prolonged irruptions
of banal irrelevant opinions, the silence in
class apart from
my hateful voice and,
in response to direct questions,
whimpers. Meanwhile I strive
to Introduce them to
Literature. The textbook cost $54. No
"Heart of Darkness," of course, in the last four
editions (I rather think I could do something
with it), but stories and poems by vital
neglected minority voices and
so much more … I revise the schedule, spare them James
and Donne, use countless allusions to Scripture and
a God I detest because Sunday School
appears the only detached, *other
language they've ever heard. On the
walkways as we pass (they wave)
I hear, a yard from their headphones,
the rhythms Saberhagen described as those
of a punch-press (perhaps their culture mourns
the well-paying factory jobs unfairly denied them?).
Then one day I
realize: shoppers. They
drift from window to window where
to look is to own, is
always almost to own … Their
teachers and parents worked seventy-hour weeks
for them. They
work. Pay rent to their parents, installments on cars and
VISA. Question: are these financial statements
a surrogate for "seeing them as people?" No.
Do you see them as people?
… As the term wanes, the stories
mount: the one who missed three weeks to get
her antidepressants balanced, the one
who left before the final because
he couldn't; the father who left,
the grandmother who
died, the friend who was raped.
I suppose my derisory wages cover
my upbeat emails, the tears in
my cubicle. Of course I show
compassion, inflating
their grades as much as I can.
Really, what else can one do?
Exterminate all the brutes?