Why I Teach: A Poem Submitted by Ann Van Etten on April 20, 2010 Blogs and Articles: Teaching Printer-friendly version Editor’s Note: For National Poetry Month, we’ve departed from our typical prose-only style to present this special Why I Teach column. if I did not teach i would leave the high-rise office complex and take home an empty briefcase that was polished and shiny and had bright brass hinges that would gleam in the light i would wear high-heeled shoes that would match my suit and would distract my clients in the middle of another one of my brilliant sales pitches or cross examinations or board meetings or project presentations or working business luncheons i would be able to interact all day talking to people all over the world in rushed conversations, imagining what their faces looked like while on my cell or blackberry or twitter or the next and new sort of electronic pulse but i do teach so i walk in to a room of pieced-together furniture and worn out carpet, stained after years of a dripping furnace holding a backpack of papers filled with ideas and hopes and things that scare them i wear faded clogs that help me to get to the one that needs me to read over this poem it shows what they really think or are trying to understand or are angry about or hope and imagine something they can someday be i interact all day explaining the movement of iambic pentameter and the stylistic use of a fragment and the importance of exposing their critical analysis of a piece of literature and hurriedly answer, yes, you can go to the bathroom but only if you take a pass and make it quick, we have lots to do and because i teach i am a complete person, without any feelings of emptiness or regret or yearning for something else because i see faces of those who will transform what we do and how we do it and what that new someday will turn into and always remind me of the leaping and twisting and kneading and simmering that every year brings so i do teach.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 23:44:30 +0000
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