Back to school with a gun

If I went back to school with a gun
to correct some perceived injustice done
I wouldn't take my hate to the History corridors.  Nor Art and Design.
Nor the physics block, that blew my mind,
and gave me the tools that made the world of made-things mine.
Not the headmaster, not him.  Not even the gym.
But textbook-followers of analysis; textual.

Yes - the English department.
Those failed homosexuals.

Because that classroom, with those Sirs at the helm
convinced us lads that poetry's realm
was ladies, losers, or gifted squanderers,
poseurs, pansies, effete cloud-wanderers.
Back then the ones that liked poetry were gay, or teachers' pets.
Not good at a boys school - with showers and rugby and army cadets.

Moreover, we studied Shakspeare too soon.
Didn't rate him.
Learnt literature by rote, not by right, and started too hard.
We should have read Mills and Boon
first, then we might have seen the the light, grown to love the bard.
Instead we learned to hate him.

And verse?  Aged 13 I tried to tell
in twisted 'Glish
of the silfin dreadsome Spurblefish
that skiddle-skattled, careened and veered
lecht and lurpt, Carrolled and Leared.

But you taught syntax and grammar as constants - quashing a promising career in nonsense.

OK - 'Spose we had to know the rules to break 'em.
But that doesn't make them
the sole objective.
Hence my invective.  You forced my thoughts into Chaucer's wheelruts
I should have been writing of lovechatter and steelgut.
Darling buds of teenage poets scotched, when
if you'd only shown us, we'd have watched:

Men.

Larkin fumbling self-consciously at the bra-straps of a sexually-revolting age
in library backrooms, tweed and beige.
(I'm not saying our GCSE english teacher sucked, but...
...it wasn't mum and dad fucked me up.)

then if maybe or be we
of no feminising narratives how
the written screw
that cummings e e
            as knew
the male brain is a contactsheet
                   a not slideshow

Or better yet,
muscly Hughes,
trapping nature in his net.

And even if we lads weren't for dreaming spires intentioned
you might at least have mentioned
that, used judiciously verse unfurls
certain layers of certain girls.

See - I can forgive the bad breath, the endless Macbeth
and understand why
you felt it was important we should do Shakespeare so early
But what I can't let go, and would repay with death,
is the unintended lie
you told.  Because... Because of you...

I grew up thinking poetry was girly.

Comments

[Loopdilou]

Perhaps this is why only girls leave comments ;)

[An Unreliable Witness]

Mr Larkin? Is that you? I knew you weren't dead, I knew it!

[Lillipilli]

When all the time it was get the (certain) girly. Pricks!

[The Girl]

After my English teacher told me my writing were "boring" when I was 11, I bunked off his lessons for the next three years: hence why my grammar and syntax are shit. Reading this post makes me mourn those years and wish I had stuck with it, regardless of my bad relationship with the teacher. Your writing is just beautiful.

[The Girl]

And I managed to make a typo - of course. Were = was. Obviously. (2 hours sleep = a dim Girl.)

[mike]

Well, we had it lucky. After being taught English grammar in the most rigourously orthodox way - parts of speech, parsing, the full works - the same teacher then explicitly encouraged us to break all the rules she had drummed into us, by sitting at the front of the class and blowing bubbles, and asking us to write "freely" about what we saw. I was only nine! It was fab!

[Ani]

Consider my layers unfurled...

[isabelle]

Well, better late than never
and at least you've caught on quick
how to play with words,
make images stick.
Numbers passed me coldly by ,
a young girl lost her chance,
now my head is spun
with tales of Fermat's romance.

( so, I'd go for my dry old maths teacher.)

[clarissa]

Sigh.

[Silver Lining]

Only one of my teachers was brutal -
The one who taught me to whistle my flute(l)
For every time my fingering fumbled
She'd stamp on my foot, till my instep crumbled.
So if you're accepting nominations
For your gunly ministrations
I'd send you off to the music department
And hope that your aim is better than my doggerel.

[oe]

Loopdilou - Yeah... hadn't thought of that.

Witness - I'm back and I'm bad, and here to fuck you up - like mum and dad!

Lillipilli - eh?

The Girl - I think you've caught up since. Now get in that bed...

mike - a good teacher is everything. I remember a chemistry teacher who taught me to question everything. And blow things up.

Ani - send photo. I joke!

isabelle - See me after school. Extra maths tuition.

clarissa - Mmm.

Silver Lining - Don't worry. You're poetry enough.

[oe]

Oh and I went back and fiddled with this after Witness and Clarissa made me think more about Larkin and cummings. Blame them.

OE

[pocketpunk]

I too gave up on English when the teachers favoured all the best kids. Just couldnt be arsed throwing myself ito a topic which is so personal and I have never been too fond of criticism. I preferred maths.....there is only one answer and I made sure I got it right.

[peach]

Bloody hell, I'm away for one little day ...

My mother was an English teacher, a poetry lover, but her limitations are now mine. The joy, I feel, is finding it all out for yourself, despite, because of, or along with, everyone else.

Nice post.

[Betty]

Brilliant. Mind you, if I went back to school with a gun I'd have to take out not just English teachers but maths teachers. Why was I forced to confront Shakespeare and trigonometry at exactly the same time that my hormones were conspiring against me?

[Ben]

I often ring up my GCSE Maths teacher at 3 am and shriek "I TOLD YOU I WOULD NEVER NEED TRIGONOMETRY!" down the phone when I've had a bad day. Maths was a total waste of my time.

I quite liked being the gay teacher's pet with the poetryness. It gave me an excuse not to have to make friends with the meatheads who put everyone in rank and file according to how well they could thump a football at a net.

God, I really hated school.

[looby]

I've always liked poetry and used to memorise sections of it for my own pleasure. It's a physical and sensual form of literature, so maybe that's why men subconsciously shun it.

Given the response of the girlies here though, I'll remember to deploy it carefully on my blog at some point in the future if my current barren stretch continues.

[Tricia]

That was brilliant!
I think Hughes would approve.
"This house has been far out at sea all night"

There's no point in going back now.