I’m on a roll. More teacher from The Clearing House, same issue, same page. I have recent ones too, and I’ll sprinkle them in from time to time. H.S. ENG. shows what we’re up against, methods and a moribund curriculum in too many cases. THE INGESTION OF WILBUR, that’s of course Richard Wilbur, a great modern poet who knows how, a take-home assignment to be brought back in for class discussion and debriefing, a poem included in my forthcoming volume of Seminar Poems which says a lot about a lot of things and shows some of what’s on my mind.

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H.S. ENG.

days like this everyday
sentence pushers
Sisyphus upon a heap of grammar
treading underfoot the bones
of dead men’s thoughts

THE INGESTION OF WILBUR

I’ve set before them each
a steaming bowl of poem
excised in private by whatever
implemental skill of knife and fork
behind closed doors.
From this ancillary broth of adumbration
we stir and spoon and lift
for mutual inspection
our favorite hunks.