However, the first collection I got, back in January, was Susan Montez's Teaching Shakespeare, which is absolutely phenomenal, and seemed especially appropriate for today, Shakespeare's alleged birthday. This is the titular poem, and it packs an absolute punch. This poem comes with some content warnings, mainly for slurs and the fundamental inequalities of the education system in America.
I usually post one of the sonnets (in addition to a Shakespeare-related poem) on Shakespeare day, but to be honest typing up this poem took a lot out of me (ooof, the formatting), so I'm going to forego the sonnet this year. This poem is a lot already.
This semester: Julius Caesar
Caesar. Everyone wants to be Caesar
I want Durrell (whose real name's Antonius)
to be Mark Antony.
I usually post one of the sonnets (in addition to a Shakespeare-related poem) on Shakespeare day, but to be honest typing up this poem took a lot out of me (ooof, the formatting), so I'm going to forego the sonnet this year. This poem is a lot already.
This semester: Julius Caesar
Caesar. Everyone wants to be Caesar
I want Durrell (whose real name's Antonius)
to be Mark Antony.
"Stand you directly in Antonius' way
When he doth run his course, Antonius!"
Directly in Antonius' way, indeed.
(My Cantrilena: Studente/Insegnante)
Durrell: I want an older woman
like you, Mrs. Nixon,
criminally-minded like me—
your mind, my body
I'd give you a heart attack in bed.
Me: Durell, this has got to stop.
If I wrote you up,
you'd be suspended
100 years.
(Mezzo Sonnet)
Durell, Antonius, Mark Antony's lure
has been rebuked since I wrote him up for
throwing a gumball at me from the hall.
He sits, "I ain't being nobody." Fall
from grace. Have I? From his. There'll be no more
fresh looks, fresh talks which he's been warned against
anyway. I try to keep feelings fenced.
Durrell comes around before class
looking for gum. He's told people
(I think) we've got something
going that isn't going
In class I read, "Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?"
Durell looks me in the eye, "Leap in with me
into this angry flood,
and swim to yonder point."
(Sicilian Octave)
to yonder point, Durrell, I've been to yon-
der point. It's sea, it's stone, it's everywhere
this flotsam jetsam tide. It's just a con
for everyone to get them in floods. Tear
up their hearts, and minds, and hearths, still a pond
would be very nice, green water, and a pair
of lily pads and frogs. We could be fond,
live on dry land. Alas, I'm too old to dare.
(A Change of Heart)
Hark, Durrell wants to do, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen,"
after assurance Antony's no fag.
Durrell, lend me your ear.
I say, no, his downfall Cleopatra,
Queen of Egypt, enemy to Rome, was
what got him in the end. Duties Roma
neglected while he floated the Nile, fuzz
minded by wine and grapes and love engulfed
by rich flesh, jewels, black hair, he forgot his
Roman armies, Octavius, Octavia,
to be with Cleopatra. Career dis-
solved by love. Durrell likes this, "Can we do
that play next?"
(Lo Sogno)
Durrell and I together drifting down
the Nile but not by barge, by yellow float—
the water still, we barely move. Against
my wish, we're out the float, the water
shallow, we walk the Nile towards white lights
of Alexandria. I say, "There's parasites.
The problem: Children swim the river,
get infected, die—Alexandria's
no good—thieves, disease, and poverty," Lights
ahead, Lawrence Durrell is dead this year.
Durrell says, "You crazy, come on."
(Spezzato Paradiso)
All roads don't lead to Rome.
Some lead to Chase City,
but you can always make connections
when there aren't any
between Durrell, Rome, Cairo, Chase City
barges on the Nile, Julius Caesar.
When Pindarus stabs Cassius,
Durrell grabs the podium.
"Why aren't there Black folks in Shakespeare?"
Black folks, Black folks! There are! Othello! Palm-leaved
Ethiopians fanning Cleopatra!
Durrell says: The problem with Shakespeare
and this whole school is racism!
They ought to fire all the old and young
white ugly teachers!
Durrell says: Let me tell you who's a racist in this school
Coach Kreigfield's a racist
I hear what he calls us
Ms. Jones in the office's a racist
Ms. Lalley is a racist
she teaches them white kids up front
and leaves the rest of us
in the back ignorant
and her husband don't pay her no attention
that's her problem and she's a redneck, cracker
anyway
Ms. Smythe the geography teacher's a racist
Mr. Collin's a racist
no one in the parliamentary procedures
competition was black—all white
and Mr. Wolfe is a racist
and Ms. Block is a racist and she's also
fat and that other fat Spanish teacher, Mullins,
is a racist and her husband's a racist
and Pat Trumpet in the back row's a racist
and I ain't saying nothing about Ms. Nixon
but she's married to a redneck
from Buckingham where they're all racists
and Shakespeare's a racist.
And that's what's wrong with this school.
Racism.
(Durrell is failing English)
Despite his Antonius prowess
and 100% participation grade,
Durrell refuses to write essays other than
WHY I HATE TO WRITE ESSAYS
One reason I hate to write essays
is because I don't really know
how to write an essay
and the teacher
won't help me any on
how to write one and
besides essays are boring if
I wanted to write all the
time I would have made
a book and one more thing
you give too many essays.
(End of Cantrilena)
Why are you failing English?
You know why.
You won't write essays.
That's not why.
Then why?
You know why.
—Susan Montez (d. 2016), "Teaching Shakespeare," from Teaching Shakespeare (Astoria Press: 2020).
The collection was published posthumously, and the poems were written significantly before her death in 2016. In the introduction to the collection, Binnie Kirshenbaum writes: "After Susan completed Teaching Shakespeare, and she declared herself done, I'd assumed she meant the book was finished. But I was wrong. She meant she was done with poetry. She refused to give the manuscript to her editor despite his asking for it several times. She wrote no more poems, either." Then, only a few days before her death, Kirshenbaum writes, "she said to me, 'When I get out of [the hospital], I'm going to get back to poetry. I'm going to send the manuscript out and start writing again.'" I never did write my dissertation about literary executors in the 17th century, but I sure do think about them a lot—almost as often as I think about teaching Shakespeare.
Durrell: I want an older woman
like you, Mrs. Nixon,
criminally-minded like me—
your mind, my body
I'd give you a heart attack in bed.
Me: Durell, this has got to stop.
If I wrote you up,
you'd be suspended
100 years.
(Mezzo Sonnet)
Durell, Antonius, Mark Antony's lure
has been rebuked since I wrote him up for
throwing a gumball at me from the hall.
He sits, "I ain't being nobody." Fall
from grace. Have I? From his. There'll be no more
fresh looks, fresh talks which he's been warned against
anyway. I try to keep feelings fenced.
Durrell comes around before class
looking for gum. He's told people
(I think) we've got something
going that isn't going
In class I read, "Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?"
Durell looks me in the eye, "Leap in with me
into this angry flood,
and swim to yonder point."
(Sicilian Octave)
to yonder point, Durrell, I've been to yon-
der point. It's sea, it's stone, it's everywhere
this flotsam jetsam tide. It's just a con
for everyone to get them in floods. Tear
up their hearts, and minds, and hearths, still a pond
would be very nice, green water, and a pair
of lily pads and frogs. We could be fond,
live on dry land. Alas, I'm too old to dare.
(A Change of Heart)
Hark, Durrell wants to do, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen,"
after assurance Antony's no fag.
Durrell, lend me your ear.
I say, no, his downfall Cleopatra,
Queen of Egypt, enemy to Rome, was
what got him in the end. Duties Roma
neglected while he floated the Nile, fuzz
minded by wine and grapes and love engulfed
by rich flesh, jewels, black hair, he forgot his
Roman armies, Octavius, Octavia,
to be with Cleopatra. Career dis-
solved by love. Durrell likes this, "Can we do
that play next?"
(Lo Sogno)
Durrell and I together drifting down
the Nile but not by barge, by yellow float—
the water still, we barely move. Against
my wish, we're out the float, the water
shallow, we walk the Nile towards white lights
of Alexandria. I say, "There's parasites.
The problem: Children swim the river,
get infected, die—Alexandria's
no good—thieves, disease, and poverty," Lights
ahead, Lawrence Durrell is dead this year.
Durrell says, "You crazy, come on."
(Spezzato Paradiso)
All roads don't lead to Rome.
Some lead to Chase City,
but you can always make connections
when there aren't any
between Durrell, Rome, Cairo, Chase City
barges on the Nile, Julius Caesar.
When Pindarus stabs Cassius,
Durrell grabs the podium.
"Why aren't there Black folks in Shakespeare?"
Black folks, Black folks! There are! Othello! Palm-leaved
Ethiopians fanning Cleopatra!
Durrell says: The problem with Shakespeare
and this whole school is racism!
They ought to fire all the old and young
white ugly teachers!
Durrell says: Let me tell you who's a racist in this school
Coach Kreigfield's a racist
I hear what he calls us
Ms. Jones in the office's a racist
Ms. Lalley is a racist
she teaches them white kids up front
and leaves the rest of us
in the back ignorant
and her husband don't pay her no attention
that's her problem and she's a redneck, cracker
anyway
Ms. Smythe the geography teacher's a racist
Mr. Collin's a racist
no one in the parliamentary procedures
competition was black—all white
and Mr. Wolfe is a racist
and Ms. Block is a racist and she's also
fat and that other fat Spanish teacher, Mullins,
is a racist and her husband's a racist
and Pat Trumpet in the back row's a racist
and I ain't saying nothing about Ms. Nixon
but she's married to a redneck
from Buckingham where they're all racists
and Shakespeare's a racist.
And that's what's wrong with this school.
Racism.
(Durrell is failing English)
Despite his Antonius prowess
and 100% participation grade,
Durrell refuses to write essays other than
WHY I HATE TO WRITE ESSAYS
One reason I hate to write essays
is because I don't really know
how to write an essay
and the teacher
won't help me any on
how to write one and
besides essays are boring if
I wanted to write all the
time I would have made
a book and one more thing
you give too many essays.
(End of Cantrilena)
Why are you failing English?
You know why.
You won't write essays.
That's not why.
Then why?
You know why.
—Susan Montez (d. 2016), "Teaching Shakespeare," from Teaching Shakespeare (Astoria Press: 2020).
The collection was published posthumously, and the poems were written significantly before her death in 2016. In the introduction to the collection, Binnie Kirshenbaum writes: "After Susan completed Teaching Shakespeare, and she declared herself done, I'd assumed she meant the book was finished. But I was wrong. She meant she was done with poetry. She refused to give the manuscript to her editor despite his asking for it several times. She wrote no more poems, either." Then, only a few days before her death, Kirshenbaum writes, "she said to me, 'When I get out of [the hospital], I'm going to get back to poetry. I'm going to send the manuscript out and start writing again.'" I never did write my dissertation about literary executors in the 17th century, but I sure do think about them a lot—almost as often as I think about teaching Shakespeare.
No comments:
Post a Comment