Around a long table we sat
Nine eighteen-year-olds
And learned the names we can still recite today:
Shylock, Hal, Antonio, Kate, Emilia,
Shallow, Polonius, Edmund, Ariel,
Romeo and Eros.
His class was a séance
But we didn’t join hands
And there was no need for candles
Or blessings or bells;
There were books, true,
And between their pages,
Our minds were read.
A good teacher doesn’t spell it out; the Ouija moves
With unseen energy and pulls you along
Until
From fingertips to blood to bone
The message comes through.
I wrote it in my margins, that list,
But I don’t need it
To remember. I call it up from the past,
A ghost of an idea, when I face a new class,
Every time.
3 Responses to His Class Was A Séance
46lextate - January 19, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Thanks for the charming poem. Classes resumed today at my Big Ten university–I have in my journalism lab eight 19-year-olds who want to be print reporters–and the Ouija board is gassed up and ready to ride.
literarytype - January 19, 2010 at 6:19 pm
I wondered why the list of those names and then realized they spelled The Name. Neat, if perhaps a tad precious. Neat nevertheless.
dank48 - January 20, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Nice piece, nice poem. (No irony intended.)For some reason Ambrose Bierce is on my mind today. Check out his spirited defense of Shakespeare against Tolstoy’s attack in “What Is Art?” He points out that by Tolstoy’s lofty standard, Shakespeare was, indeed, no artist. Not every word is essential to every line, every line to every scene, etc. Indeed, there are plays without which civilization would get along just fine. Then, after this tactical concession, Bierce (I know, of all people) sums up the greatest playwright this world has every known about as neatly as I’ve ever seen:”He threw out his jewels like a drunken prodigal, mad with the lust for spending.”