Alan Feldman Writes with & About His Students

A while back I wrote that most American poets were teachers but did not write poems about teaching.  I posted "Class," a poem by Linda Bamber, who is an exception.  Linda thanked me and said, 'We're supposed to act as if we always want to be somewhere else beside the classroom, but teaching is a big part of my life.'

Since that post, I've been finding more poems about the poet's life in the classroom.  Here's one by Alan Feldman, author of the collection, A Sail to Great Island.  Alan said he wrote the poem in class as the students were working on their sestinas, and that it was his practice to write along with his students.  

AGING, JOY, WATER, CHILDREN, LOVE, AND ILLNESS SESTINA

I've told them it's a good form for obsessives.  Love

for example may preoccupy you, like a long illness

or a splinter you can't extract, or a joy

so huge it's like standing next to a blimp.  They are children

in this art, circling the big square seminar table.  I'm aging,

wearing out my seat.  In recent years, they've been flowing through

here as fast as water.

Oh sometimes, if the shade is up, I see a sky as blue as water

over their heads, while their heads are bowed in writing.  I love

the quiet then in the room.  I can almost hear them aging--

something they like, still since to them it's growth, not an illness.

As I get older, they look like adults recently fashioned from the children 

in some fifth grade class, their child-faces sheer joy

as they assume their beauty and distinction.  Well, I know for them

there isn't much joy

in school, they'd all rather be in or on the water

with iPods, towels, surfboards, digging in the sand like children,

though I'm sure if I asked them they'd say they love

the course.  After they're absent they even show me little notes for  

  non-serious illnesses

like mono and strep, nothing like the grave things they'll get when

  they're really aging.

So it's fun for me because as I'm aging

they keep appearing here like bubbles out of a spring.  Earth's joy

in its own improvisation.  More Kids!  More kids!  For better or ill.

None any more necessary or unnecessary than the rest of us.  Made  from water

and a few cents worth of minerals, and full of love

for the sweet forms of each other, something that leads to the begetting

  of new children

though not just yet!  No, here their heads are bent like children

taking a spelling test, their hair hanging down like curtains so you

  can't guess their ages,

their books satchels, soda cans, candy bar wrappers, the sprawl

  of Xeroxed papers I love

to hand out (so I can know I'm giving them something--oh joy!--

even if it's only paper).  Yes they could be underwater

they're concentrating so silently, as though the illness

of distractibility has been cured for everyone forever, that illness

that drowns out all but the obvious meaning of words.

  Well, Children

aren't fooled by the obvious.  They know the words are waiting  

  like water

to be played with.  If I look up now I can see the sky is aging

into the color of blue snow.  But the windows are wide open.

  And they seem to enjoy

writing while wearing their bright coats, not bothered by cold,

  safely in love

with the winter that won't mean (for them) illness or aging

but amazing changes as the ice melts to water, and their

 thoughts turn into waves of joy

as they turn away from being children, and find their own new

  words to tell us how angry they are, how much they love.