These poems were begun in an online workshop on Tuesday the 5th of May using Mary Ruefle’s Sentimental Education and Paul Muldoon’s Anseo as inspiration. They were finished by the poets with some email edits from me. They are all real, tangible, moving poems full of gritty, even snotty detail and the sounds and sights of school. Shadmana and Adiba joined us from Afghanistan: their poems reflect the fact that they aren’t allowed to go to school. Lydia’s poem is on a different topic, but beautifully congruent. If you have a poem to add, just let me know.
The next workshop is Tuesday the 2nd of June. I’m also working on some Saturday workshops, tentative dates the 13th June, 11th July, 8th August.
Meantime, please read and celebrate the talent and the honesty. Pass them round.
I Still Think of Andrew Hoppé Andrew Hoppé, that’s Hope with two Ps Freckled geek in drain-pipe trousers (years before punks). Mrs Wilson sat me next to you for punishment Because I was pretty and she didn’t like girls like that. Andrew Hoppé, who we all knew was friendless. Andrew Hoppé who all the boys teased. Andrew Hoppé, science buddy. Thank you for dissecting the bull’s eye for me. I’m a vegan now. Andrew Hoppé, at the high school reunion, I heard your father died too young. I know they kept bullying. Andrew Hoppé, a suicide in your early twenties Four decades later your name hops to me. Lynn Genvieve I remember Simon Kite who pees from a tree. Caroline Batchelor who spells Czechoslovakia and thinks women shouldn’t vote. Gordon Clarkson who eats apples, core, pip and stalk. David Kelly who preserves dead things but has his own shed, which makes it better. I remember Lavinia Bone who steals things but does not own things, Maureen Cheek who smells of milk and the girl with no name, who has no hair and a wig. You could be friends with them, but then you would have only one friend. They don’t even like each other. I remember Kevin Smith with just one leg, the other sits on the poolside during swimming when he is fast. Tracey W, Tracey C, and Tracy without an e— that’s me. The girl with no name and no hair is called ‘Wiggy’. But not by me. Not by me. Caroline Batchelor, being able to spell Czechoslovakia is useless these days Tracy Watson-Brown Sentimental Education When she moved from Kabul to Herat the school bell rang freedom for those who had the first sum correct. 1 + 5 = how much? She answered “shesh” (6) but to the teacher’s ear it sounded like “shash” (5); her accent did not help her. Her accent separated her from the answer as if, between that 1 and 5, she were a sixth finger among them. Adiba The Calling Sister Cosmos was round like a planet Or a meteorite perhaps The sort we thought might strike the Earth next Tuesday If the quicksand didn’t get us first. Sister Cosmos had a shed full of animals And a dog called Tandy And when she confiscated our pet mice from our pockets We feared they’d be lost to her shed forever Mrs Kilcoyne spoke in tongues And believed it was the Holy Spirit. Wearing medals of our Lady In the holiest blue plastic We would crowd the tiny staff room To hear her sacred party trick. The vanilla smell of biscuits And her unintelligible mumbling On the wall, a picture of a man with a beard Who had the stigmata Outstretched hands with bloody wounds An example to us all Which one of you here has a mouse? Bless me Father for I have sinned In the fabric of my summer dress a tiny weight, Everyone watches as I walk to the dais And offer him up in cupped hands. Milli Hill School Days Curse Mrs Ford, her penny-pinching prep school, ripe with loathèd little girls. Her Triumph Herald, her Jack Russells, bony in her tweeds. Sniffing out the stuff we loved, hoovering it away. Bless and curse Miss Williams, who loved me in the classroom, where she taught me English, coaxed forth my first poem; a life of Golum; who loathed me on the rounders pitch, where I dreamed away the afternoons. Bless Miss Upton, in green with ruddy cheeks, black mouse eyes gleamed beneath her silver pudding bowl. She handed me History as a gift, even the War of Jenkin's Ear, the Defenestration of Prague, even the Diet of Worms. Curse Mr Madams, who couldn’t teach Physics. I was transfixed by his resemblance to the bridegroom in the Arnolfini Portrait, as he failed to convey refraction to my mind. Bless Clare Southgate, big glasses framed in pink. She saw me squint in Geography and passed them over; the blackboard sprung clear. It all started there. Josa Keyes Dear Miss Ashley Miss Ashley was pretty and wanted a boyfriend. Miss Ship had a boyfriend, even though she wasn’t pretty and never washed her hair. Mrs Wilson was my mother (which was how I knew this). I called her that, except when I forgot and called her mummy. I tried not to tell her things about the other kids, but a boy in my class said he wished Miss Ship really was a ship, because then he’d sink her. My mother laughed. Debbie Morgan took my new doll from Denmark home at lunchtime to show her little sister and broke my heart when she brought it back in pieces. An American boy called Carter Rowlands tried to kiss me in the playground, his blue-white face with brown freckles, looming out of the hood of his orange parka, green slugs of snot on his upper lip, and the terror of feeling waxy skin come away under my fingernails. In assembly, I had to stand up and show the whole school my tree painting, said to be so good that Miss Ashley had it framed as a leaving gift for Mrs Wilson. but my mother’s house was full of her own paintings, and so I’m not sure she even liked it all that much. Dear Miss Ashley, you never did find a boyfriend. Dear Miss Ashley, I wish I didn’t know this. Tanya Morel I remember Ustaad Frishta, her big black purse full of fruit, one red apple disappearing in a single bite, and me too small to reach the board. I remember first grade, the stairs, my bag bigger than me, red lipstick like I had somewhere important to be, even without my brother beside me. I remember Ustaad Iqlima, tall, five-inch heels, pink lipstick, the kind of teacher you don’t breathe too loudly around. I remember pink desks, horror movies playing too low, one girl by the door like a guard, ready to save us from getting caught. I remember my mom’s hands in my hair, too tight or too loose, never just right, my blue scarf, my cheeks red like tomatoes after football. I remember sharpening pencils like it was freedom. I remember the bell, I swear I can still hear it. Shadmana The Time Capsule We took it seriously, the act of collation in honour of what we didn’t know. planned and then placed under the school bell that peeled out our lives into parcels of minutes, the bell we stood under to recite ‘For the fallen’ for those we didn’t think we knew. We took it seriously, or at least the girls did. put aside our cruelties for a week or two. the girl with the pinched face took charge. the sullen one with pigtails joined in. And me, always conscientious, a word I couldn’t yet spell. the boys were roaring in the playground. the boys were the ones who needed direction. ‘No pranks,’ the teacher said to the boy with bogies and cheap glasses. ‘No rude comments,’ she commanded, the class clown with the goofy smile. we knuckled down as if assembling history. a capsule of our huge and momentous stuff. Our initials on the concrete slab – a mark for all time. But futures come in slow reveals. on my last trip home I bumped into the goofy one, cheerful, carefree, still. I spied the girl with the pinched face at church, still frowning. Then I met the sullen girl. she told me how she found addiction, dark and mean and shameful. The boy with bogies built an empire of houses. His friendship saved her. ‘Without him,’ she said, ‘it would have been who knows what.’ Liz Fisher Peter, David, Martin, Jane I remember it as far as my name. Sophie Atkinson was my best friend. We flushed her tuna sandwiches down the toilet. Maria Collins had earrings. She was allowed to bounce on the bed. Adam Bird wouldn’t sit still and Mr Searle put a brick on his lap. Mrs Brown lived next door to the school. Her husband had died. Mr Parry lived across the road. He wore a grown up school jumper on non uniform days. Mrs Hopkins was the dinner lady. She said five and twenty not twenty five. Blodwyn lived in the cellar. I never saw her. She was a dragon. Welsh. Peter, David, Martin, Jane. Saying their names conjures that world back again. Jane Williams THE PILGRIM PLAY Towneley No24 Four Small things about the Pilgrim Play 1. Clark’s minibus booked for 9.00am 2. The five sandwich lunches I packed 3. In a handy zip bag, one cloth for the table 4. with your hat, staff, three rough bread rolls’ Details about the Pilgrim play Performed three times on a different fixed stage late Sunday afternoon in front of the cathedral spoken in Middle English with a cast of three the prompter aged 29 is me Stage Direction (between lines 103 and 104) Hic verit Jesus in apparatus peregrini Film Performance in the Precinct made by Robinson, Stewart, Stewart 28 minutes long That Afternoon you took my hand my ears rang I stood in stained glass light dizzy from the blues and reds your words made visible your hand clasped in min Lydia Harris Sentimental Education (6.5.26) Fleur Sanders brings presents to class. She wants to buy our love. Henrietta Haim has my heart. She’s in the class above with all my other A class friends From primary school last year. High school sucks. My teachers urge me “You can do it, try harder.” My hand sweats, and my heart surges. Pen slips in my fingers. Blots on the page. I try again But it’s never perfect. It’s not fair ‘cause I love learning But my mind gets bent To last night and Mum’s binge drinking I wish that things were different. So I find a boy to love instead Then find we shouldn’t have wed. The school of life is where I learned To love women instead. Viviane Morrigan