Motherless @ MindSay 
CROQUET
For the first four weeks of my developmental writing class Kevin, a muscular, handsome, bearded man of thirty-five, sat silent, writing nothing. Then one morning he brought to my desk a scrap of paper. It had been ripped from a small spiral note pad. He held it towards me, an offering.
“Can I write about this?” he asked nervously, staring at his feet.
I read slowly, struggling to interpret his tiny script. It was the story of the night his father had murdered his mother in the kitchen of their farm home. When the shotgun fired, destroying his mother’s head, Kevin, age eight, and his three younger brothers ran from their bedroom and into the kitchen to see. In horror and shock they ran wildly about the house, yelling and screaming, and then returned to the kitchen and stood and absorbed the scene, wetting their pants, each holding in their trembling hands the croquet mallets they had slept with each night for months in hopes they might protect their mother in the event of just such a tragedy.
I was stunned.
“Yes,” I told Kevin. “I’ll help you.”
With his right index finger Kevin typed his story into a computer in the learning center, day after day slowly and laboriously hunting and pecking the keys after I had helped him to proofread each new addition to his tale and to correct his punctuation. In his story Kevin described his life both before and after his mother's murder. His father was a drunk. When he drank he got mean. When his father beat on his mother, Kevin wrote, he beat on her like he thought she was a man. He beat on his sons. He menaced them with guns. He set fire to their house. Twice he'd been convicted of vehicular homicide. Twice he'd served time in prison. After the murder he fled. When he sobered up he turned himself in and expressed remorse for what he'd done. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. Nine years later he was out. Kevin's life spun out of control. He and his three brothers all lost themselves in drinking and drugs. One brother killed himself. Five times Kevin was arrested for drunk driving. He spent time in jail. Three times he overdosed on drugs and woke up in a hospital. He married and divorced. One morning Kevin got up after a binge and called a local treatment center. Two years later he enrolled in my class. In the remaining eight weeks of the quarter Kevin's story grew to twelve pages before we ran out of time. Exhilarated, proud of his achievement, Kevin finished in a rush.
“That’s all behind me now,” he concluded. “Forward!”
A year after his graduation from Techno, I received an invitation to Kevin's wedding and a note of thanks. I didn’t attend, but I sent a small gift and a card. I am tempted to end my story of his story here, happily, but life is rarely so tidy and neat as our hopes and our arts. A second year passed. One day I was both startled and pleased to see Kevin at a locker in the east wing of the building. He was back in school, upgrading his skills in photography.
“Hey, the newlywed!” I waved.
“Oh,” he smiled, shyly. “That didn’t work out.”
Over the years I continued to copy and distribute Kevin’s memoir in my classes as an example—of many things—for my students. Just four days after one such instance, one of my students returned to class from a long weekend in Kansas where she and her boyfriend had attended a motorcycle rally. There—in a startling coincidence—she had somehow bumped into Kevin, and in their brief conversation they had learned what they shared in common.
“Is Mr. Skank still using my story?” Kevin had asked.
“Yes, yes, he is!” she told him. “I just read it!”
This pleased Kevin immensely, my student reported. Kevin couldn’t stop smiling. Her news left me dazed.
“How did he seem?” I asked.
“Fine!”
“Can I write about this?” he asked nervously, staring at his feet.
I read slowly, struggling to interpret his tiny script. It was the story of the night his father had murdered his mother in the kitchen of their farm home. When the shotgun fired, destroying his mother’s head, Kevin, age eight, and his three younger brothers ran from their bedroom and into the kitchen to see. In horror and shock they ran wildly about the house, yelling and screaming, and then returned to the kitchen and stood and absorbed the scene, wetting their pants, each holding in their trembling hands the croquet mallets they had slept with each night for months in hopes they might protect their mother in the event of just such a tragedy.
I was stunned.
“Yes,” I told Kevin. “I’ll help you.”
With his right index finger Kevin typed his story into a computer in the learning center, day after day slowly and laboriously hunting and pecking the keys after I had helped him to proofread each new addition to his tale and to correct his punctuation. In his story Kevin described his life both before and after his mother's murder. His father was a drunk. When he drank he got mean. When his father beat on his mother, Kevin wrote, he beat on her like he thought she was a man. He beat on his sons. He menaced them with guns. He set fire to their house. Twice he'd been convicted of vehicular homicide. Twice he'd served time in prison. After the murder he fled. When he sobered up he turned himself in and expressed remorse for what he'd done. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. Nine years later he was out. Kevin's life spun out of control. He and his three brothers all lost themselves in drinking and drugs. One brother killed himself. Five times Kevin was arrested for drunk driving. He spent time in jail. Three times he overdosed on drugs and woke up in a hospital. He married and divorced. One morning Kevin got up after a binge and called a local treatment center. Two years later he enrolled in my class. In the remaining eight weeks of the quarter Kevin's story grew to twelve pages before we ran out of time. Exhilarated, proud of his achievement, Kevin finished in a rush.
“That’s all behind me now,” he concluded. “Forward!”
A year after his graduation from Techno, I received an invitation to Kevin's wedding and a note of thanks. I didn’t attend, but I sent a small gift and a card. I am tempted to end my story of his story here, happily, but life is rarely so tidy and neat as our hopes and our arts. A second year passed. One day I was both startled and pleased to see Kevin at a locker in the east wing of the building. He was back in school, upgrading his skills in photography.
“Hey, the newlywed!” I waved.
“Oh,” he smiled, shyly. “That didn’t work out.”
Over the years I continued to copy and distribute Kevin’s memoir in my classes as an example—of many things—for my students. Just four days after one such instance, one of my students returned to class from a long weekend in Kansas where she and her boyfriend had attended a motorcycle rally. There—in a startling coincidence—she had somehow bumped into Kevin, and in their brief conversation they had learned what they shared in common.
“Is Mr. Skank still using my story?” Kevin had asked.
“Yes, yes, he is!” she told him. “I just read it!”
This pleased Kevin immensely, my student reported. Kevin couldn’t stop smiling. Her news left me dazed.
“How did he seem?” I asked.
“Fine!”
i think, therefore...
today, i have thought about:
1. Why can't anyone spell anymore? we have this wonderful program on all our nifty machines called spellcheck, and no one bothers to use it. come on, people! and is it so hard to knkow the difference between there, their and they're? your and you're? which and witch? where and were?
2. I notice that when people are threatened by another viewpoint, they get really defensive, but don't use any sort of argument in defense... example: i was looking at a message board for a band, and someone posted "_(insert band name here)_ SUCKS!" and from there was just "f*** u, ur a fag," "ur such a f*ckin' pussy, go f*ckin' die," "you don't know shit, ur taste in music sux balls," "u suck, (username of offending poster)," and so on. I don't understand, what is the point of that? there is no point!
3. This poem:
One-Word Poem
by David R. Slavitt
Motherless.
Discussion questions.
Is this a joke? And, if so, is it a joke of the poet in which the editor of the magazine (or, later, the book publisher or the textbook writers) has conspired? Or is it a joke on the editors and publishers? Is the reader the audience of the poem?
It is regrettable not to have a mother. Is the purpose of the poem to convey an emotion to the reader? Does the poet suppose that this is the saddest word in the language? Do you agree or disagree? Can you suggest a sadder word?
The Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary gives an alternate meaning from nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australian slang as an intensifier, as in “stone motherless broke.” Can you assume that the poet knew this? Does this make for an ambiguity in the poem? Does this information change your emotional response?
If the assertion of the single word as a work of art is not a joke, then what could it mean? Is it a Dada-ist gesture, amusing and cheeky perhaps but with an underlying seriousness that the poet either invites or defies the reader to understand?
Even if the poet was merely fooling around, does that necessarily diminish the possible seriousness of the poem?
If we acknowledge that this is a work of art, can the author assert ownership? Is it possible to copyright a one-word poem?
In writing a one-word poem, the crucial decision must be which word to choose and to posit as a work of art. Do you think the poet spent a great deal of time picking this word? Or did he simply open a dictionary and let his fingers do the walking? Does that diminish the poem’s value? Or is it a kind of bibliomancy?
Should the word have been in quotes? Or is it quotes even without being in quotes? There is a period at the end of the poem. Would it change the meaning of the poem if there were an exclamation point? Or no punctuation at all? Would that be a different poem? Better or worse? Or would you like it more or less? (Are these different questions?)
You can almost certainly write—or “write”—a one-word poem. But it would be difficult for you to get it published—almost certainly more difficult now that this one has been published and staked its claim. Is the publication of a poem a part of the creative act? Had the poet written his poem and put it away in his desk drawer as Emily Dickinson used to do, would this make it a different poem?
Some poems we read and some that we particularly like, we memorize. You have already memorized this one. Do you like it better now? Or are the questions part of the poem, so that you have not yet memorized it? Will you, anyway? Do you need to memorize the questions verbatim, or is the idea enough?
Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press from William Henry Harrison and Other Poems by David R. Slavitt. Copyright © by David R. Slavitt.
taken from poets.org
1. Why can't anyone spell anymore? we have this wonderful program on all our nifty machines called spellcheck, and no one bothers to use it. come on, people! and is it so hard to knkow the difference between there, their and they're? your and you're? which and witch? where and were?
2. I notice that when people are threatened by another viewpoint, they get really defensive, but don't use any sort of argument in defense... example: i was looking at a message board for a band, and someone posted "_(insert band name here)_ SUCKS!" and from there was just "f*** u, ur a fag," "ur such a f*ckin' pussy, go f*ckin' die," "you don't know shit, ur taste in music sux balls," "u suck, (username of offending poster)," and so on. I don't understand, what is the point of that? there is no point!
3. This poem:
One-Word Poem
by David R. Slavitt
Motherless.
Discussion questions.
Is this a joke? And, if so, is it a joke of the poet in which the editor of the magazine (or, later, the book publisher or the textbook writers) has conspired? Or is it a joke on the editors and publishers? Is the reader the audience of the poem?
It is regrettable not to have a mother. Is the purpose of the poem to convey an emotion to the reader? Does the poet suppose that this is the saddest word in the language? Do you agree or disagree? Can you suggest a sadder word?
The Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary gives an alternate meaning from nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australian slang as an intensifier, as in “stone motherless broke.” Can you assume that the poet knew this? Does this make for an ambiguity in the poem? Does this information change your emotional response?
If the assertion of the single word as a work of art is not a joke, then what could it mean? Is it a Dada-ist gesture, amusing and cheeky perhaps but with an underlying seriousness that the poet either invites or defies the reader to understand?
Even if the poet was merely fooling around, does that necessarily diminish the possible seriousness of the poem?
If we acknowledge that this is a work of art, can the author assert ownership? Is it possible to copyright a one-word poem?
In writing a one-word poem, the crucial decision must be which word to choose and to posit as a work of art. Do you think the poet spent a great deal of time picking this word? Or did he simply open a dictionary and let his fingers do the walking? Does that diminish the poem’s value? Or is it a kind of bibliomancy?
Should the word have been in quotes? Or is it quotes even without being in quotes? There is a period at the end of the poem. Would it change the meaning of the poem if there were an exclamation point? Or no punctuation at all? Would that be a different poem? Better or worse? Or would you like it more or less? (Are these different questions?)
You can almost certainly write—or “write”—a one-word poem. But it would be difficult for you to get it published—almost certainly more difficult now that this one has been published and staked its claim. Is the publication of a poem a part of the creative act? Had the poet written his poem and put it away in his desk drawer as Emily Dickinson used to do, would this make it a different poem?
Some poems we read and some that we particularly like, we memorize. You have already memorized this one. Do you like it better now? Or are the questions part of the poem, so that you have not yet memorized it? Will you, anyway? Do you need to memorize the questions verbatim, or is the idea enough?
Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press from William Henry Harrison and Other Poems by David R. Slavitt. Copyright © by David R. Slavitt.
taken from poets.org
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