You Make Me Uncomfortable with Your Poetic Words

Many people noted that the best thing about that post was the poetry it inspired.  I agree.  It would be a shame to let it die a quiet death in the comment section. 

eb started us off:

Those lips that your own mouth did move
Breathed forth the sound that said "I grade,"
To me that anguished to improve.
But when I heard your words conveyed
Straight in my heart discomfort rose,
Shaking that pen that ever strong
Was used in writing graceful prose,
And taught it things it knew all wrong.
"I grade" you garbled without cease
And fouled it as rotting pomes
Doth foul a bunch, which, like old grease
From kitchen to dump is cast from homes.
"I grade" you thwarted with a care
That ruined your course, saying, "as fair..."

Rich quickly followed suit:

Once within a classroom dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of a voice gently rapping, rapping about some writing chore.
`'Tis the TA,' I muttered, `rapping about some writing chore—
Only this, and nothing more.'

[...]

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `by Email, truly your instruction I deplore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently your voice flapping,
And incessant mapping, mapping of your lesson plans galore
That you make me quite uncomfortable—here I opened wide the door;—
For complaints and nothing more.

[...]

In your class I have been guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the incessent voice now burned into my brainstem's core;
More and more I sat divining, with my head slackly reclining
On how to get the grade that I could have gloated o'er
That GPA-gainful grade that I could be gloating o'er
But my marks, they are poor.

[...]

`Instructor!' said I, `thing of evil!—grader still, though but a devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God that I adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the final grading,
I shall clasp a higher rating then the one I had before—
Or the head of your department shall hear of it galore—
Quoth the TA, `Nevermore.'

And again:

This Is Just To Say

I have wasted
the brain cells
that were in
my head-box

and which
you were probably
training
to write things

Forgive me
I do not understand
so tired
and I want a better grade

AHCUAH chimed in:

I appreciate you taking
your inconvenience to instruct us
but I really had some problems in your class
and I would like to explain them to you now.

Every day I wanted to discuss with you
about the way you grade my papers and
the way you teach the class,
but I could not because the things
you say in class and your words
disturb me so much I can not.

You make me completely uncomfortable
with the little things you say in the class
like how you talk about television
or how you talk about when you
are grading our papers and trying to be fair.

You do not seem to care about our grades
only that they are up
to your too high standards and
I can not talk to you because
you make me completely uncomfortable.

For example, you say you will talk to us
about our grades but you really will not
because of how uncomfortable you make me feel
with your words and what you say.

Finally, Nicole TWN produced the requested sestina:

O Teacher, I feel we must share words.
Perhaps unlike yourself, I am not inclined to bother
With idle talk. Your words make me uncomfortable.
I took this class expecting a certain grade
Of quality.  When it was not met, I decided to speak—
Not for myself, you understand, but for all who find you unfair.

To be so misunderstood as I is really most unfair.
Why must you torment me with your words?
I am stoic; I am manly; I endure; at last, I must speak.
I have seen enough to know that you never will bother
To cast off your bias towards your own ideas, to grade
According to a paper's quality and nothing else.  Uncomfortable!

Perhaps I should have spoken earlier, but I was uncomfortable
With your words, and with what you say.  Besides, you are unfair
To those who take this class and want a passing grade.
Instead, you make us uncomfortable with your words.
Perhaps I should have attended office hours, but I couldn't bother
My sensitive conscience with the thought of the words I must speak.

You call yourself objective, but you offend us when you speak
Of discomfiting notions that make us uncomfortable
I did not come to college to be bothered
With this sort of thing.  It is disrespectful and unfair
To be kept up nights, turning over your uncomfortable words
When all I wanted was a passing grade.

I plan to contest my grade.  I learned all I know from my brother
Who is an English teacher himself, and always gave me excellent grades.
He, I, and all the other students agree you are unfair.
But they are too ashamed to confront you, and too uncomfortable to speak.
But I have seen enough… and I am not afraid to be uncomfortable
So I set pen to paper and wrote these words.

Thank you.  I would not bother to speak
If I did not want a better grade.  If you find this note uncomfortable,
You have only yourself to blame, with your unfair words.

Comments

[Rich Puchalsky]

Here's a serious question for the readers here, who probably include people with a wide range knowledge about lit crit and psychoanalysis: is anyone actually doing what I called the method of poetastic analysis? (From "poetaster", of course.) I know that "art therapy" exists, of course, but I don't mean that; I mean analysis as a way of figuring out what one really thinks about something -- a sort of cognate of dream interpretation.

[Country Mouse]

I love them all. If AHCUAH had only converted the text to read in all lower case, including the proper Is, that would be approaching perfection.