My English teachers (part 5)

Tags

Buffy Goes Dark, English teachers, literature, poetry, poets, Ron Bayes, T.S. Eliot, teaching

(Most recent post in this series—Nov. 2. Others at irregular intervals and in the Archives.)

I went to college under the impression that I would major in art. I only vaguely recall now why I thought I could have any kind of future as an artist, but fortunately, after one or two college-level art courses, I realized that (a) I wasn’t nearly as talented as I had somehow been led to believe, and (b) I didn’t care enough about art to work at it as hard as I would need to in order to get better. College is like that, or can be.

So I changed majors to something I had always cared about: English. The English department at St. Andrews included a strong creative writing and modern poetry contingent, led by Ron Bayes. I took a modern/contemporary poetry course with him, in which the foundations were Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, H.D., and then Roethke, Stafford, and the Black Mountain poets—Creeley, Olson, Levertov, etc. He taught us how to read and appreciate these open forms, and gave us the skills to develop our own tastes. Having spent some time in Japan, Bayes was also enthusiastic about Japanese poetry and the fiction of Yukio Mishima; for me, the poetry took, the fiction did not.

Bayes is an encourager—not only in the writing workshops I recall, when probably some of us should have been stifled a bit more. He supported my applications to creative writing MA/MFA programs. Thanks to Bayes, I knew that “Old Possum” was a nickname of T.S. Eliot (as in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats), enabling me to answer the Final Jeopardy clue correctly, even though I still only came in second. And when I co-edited a book recently, Bayes was kind enough to e-mail congratulations, even though the book was nothing to do with poetry.

Bayes is still going strong and apparently unstoppable. As I prepared to compose this post, I googled him and the first result was a story about his readings this past week in Wilmington. Dozens of SAPC English majors and writers will testify to his skills as a poet and teacher, and to his graciousness.

My English Teachers—part 4

Tags

English major, English teachers, literature, teaching

The last time I posted in this irregular series was in January, marking the passing of my grad school Middle English professor, George Kane. Before that, I wrote about my boarding-school teachers. In between, I completely skipped high school and college, but not because I didn’t have important and memorable teachers.

Actually, all my high school teachers were quite impressive, given that many of them were conscientious objectors who had chosen to teach at an American school in central Africa as an alternative to serving in the military in the late 1960s. High standards, concern for the community and the world, and a sense of adventure and possibility—they demonstrated all these values along with the subjects they taught.

My senior year, Mrs. Wiebe also supervised the school newspaper and yearbook, and I worked on both. These enterprises took on great importance in our small pond. The only professional work on either was the printing. The photography, layout, writing, art, and editing was all done by students. Compared to today’s glossy computer-generated productions, they look quite amateurish—but amateur in the original sense of work done for love. Along with a bit of competition and desire to snap the administration’s suspenders. I also wrote reams of bad poetry which seems to have been admired by some at the time.

A friend from those days reminded me recently that she and I wrote a play together. She sent it to me, but I’m afraid to re-read it. Maybe later.

Wrapping this post up, I think I’ve figured out why I  haven’t done more of this recently. I started the draft at about 2:30; was interrupted three or four times; it’s now almost 4:30. If I’m going to keep this up, must either write shorter posts, or find uninterrupted time.

My English Teachers–part 3

Tags

English teachers, Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien, reading aloud, students

For parts 1 and 2, see the Archives.

Some of my first-year composition students tried to distract me from the subject at hand the other day by asking me to tell them about Africa. I didn’t fall for the bait, but now I will.

When I was ten, my parents went as Presbyterian missionaries to the Democratic Republic of Congo (later Zaire, now DRC again), and during our three-year term, I attended the mission boarding school, Central School for Missionaries’ Children, along with kids from nearby Methodist and Mennonite mission stations. We called our teachers and dorm-parents “Aunt” and “Uncle,” which gave the whole enterprise a family atmosphere, with the good and the not-so-good elements of families—without, of course, actually being your real family. Most of the teachers there were kind, and very dedicated, though, and with only ten or twelve students in my class, we all got individual attention.

Another advantage of the boarding school setting was that we saw our teachers outside of class. When I was eleven, one teacher, Aunt Peggy, introduced the girls in my 5th and 6th grade dorm to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit by reading it aloud to us as a bedtime story. I will never forget the thrill as she reached the middle of the chapter in which Bilbo first explores the dragon’s cave, and finally,

Before him lies the great bottom-most cellar or dungeon-hall of the ancient dwarves right at the Mountain’s root. It is almost dark so that its vastness can only be dimly guessed but rising from the near side of the rocky floor there is a great glow. The glow of Smaug!” (205)

And then, she stopped! We begged and begged her to read more, but she refused. We reluctantly trailed off to our beds. I could hardly wait until the next night to find out what happened next. And that, gentle readers, is good storytelling.