|
This was the first poem I wrote, in that long ago 10th
grade English class. We had been studying poetry for an entire
10-week grading period. We discussed the mechanics, the structure,
the symbolic nature. Somehow, we were supposed to grasp the idea that
it was an author's feeling, expressed in words always inadequate for
the job.
The major assignment was for each of us to write a
poem that was on a subject meaningful to a 15 year old sitting in a
Spring semester English class.
Now for the rest of the story ....
I had been a "Straight A" student destined,
within two years, to apply and receive permission to attend honors
classes at the Community College. English class was easy, and I had
challenged myself the next term to read and write on Proust, when our
instructor said that nobody from our grade level could ever do that
(alas, I could only make it 50 pages myself).
During this class, Mr Machak, a delightful man in an
obscure class that has over the following decades come to represent
to me the highlight of my high school years had ongoing discussions
of the 'hidden meaning' in each poem. Being smart ass fifteen year
olds, we ALWAYS said that the hidden meaning was the first
capitalized letter in each line or somesuch with each poem first
having to pass the "first letter" test before anyone in
class would read or discuss it. It was a simple matter that, when it
was time for me to actually "write a poem", I would insert
a prescribed 'hidden meaning' into it. I would weave words to first
make sense on some appropriate subject, second conform to the
mechanical rhyming and cadence patterns, but most importantly contain
to a disobedient and mischievous 'secret message' in its first
letters. The message had to be challenging to authority and somehow
naughty but not so bad as to warrant a trip to the dreaded
principle's office. Obviously "Machak Sucks" was the answer.
The secret was so obvious that, once written, it
became an embarrassment and a source of dreadful fear. While our
'corner' of the classroom read through it and burst out laughing, I
shrunk in fear that the obviousness of the prank would be immediately
discovered. I do not know if Mr Machak missed it (among the several
hundred adolescent poems he read aloud), or let it pass by, but these
days I thank him often for daring me to enjoy the taste and flavor of
words and the thoughts they carry. Today I mostly write technical
papers and proposals, training guides and executive overviews, but in
a bleak February of 1975 in snow covered Michigan in my messy
isolated upstairs bedroom, I discovered the joy of wordplay. Thank
you Mr Duane Machak.
The obvious challenge was to fill 12 lines with an 11
letter message (requiring the dash in line 9, sheesh), and finding a
thought to begin with the difficult letter "K" in line 8.
The rest is just juvenile non-sense, trying to be sensical 'enough'
to pass the visual exam and receive the letter grade (worth 5% of
your total for that marking period). The A-B-B-C rhyming pattern was
bizarre, along with the scattered feminine endings and the off
syllable pronounciation in line 5. I can still remember all of us
unable to contain our embarrassed laughter when he read it aloud (as
he did each student's work) at the word "Kazoos" and my
stammering explanation that it was "just what I was feeling that
particular day, you know, 'Lost'". Such was the life of the 15
year old that grew up to be me. Today I can still sit and think about
it all and smile. |
