If You Wish To Be Remembered, Die Inside a Crawl Space

The dead squirrel(s?) smells a bit riper each day. The smell has gone from cabbagy to peppery, and it's getting to the point where I've come close to gagging. The woman who's office is across the hall planned a memorial for the squirrels, but of course it was on Monday, when I wasn't going to be at work. If it happened, I missed it. Also, part of the plan was a cross, which pissed me off. Who said these squirrels were Christan? I was thinking a nice secular wreath of peanuts or something.

Class is a bit frustrating. We've been holding workshops for the past couple weeks or more. Our workshops are run so that everyone gets a copy of everyone else's poem. We take everyone's poems home and write up comments for them. Having been told to look for the things that don't work, the first set of comments I wrote up focused only on that. I figured they'd understand that, if I didn't mention it, it must be working. When my poem was workshopped, the write ups I received had a lot of positive comments, which made me feel like quite the ass for being so harsh.
Workshops are a funny thing. I get a thrill when my poem's the target. Hours and hours are poured into a poem that I then hold out for everyone to tear it apart every which way they can. It's like field testing a prototype of a machine. You'll find the weak spots by seeing where it breaks. The key to not being heartbroken is separating myself from the work. Once I got past the notion that they're not invalidating what I have to say, just the way I've said it, I was free and in the clear. I love picking up the pieces of a poem freshly rended. It opens up opportunities I wouldn't have noticed before, and really, isn't it just like playing with Legos as a kid? Build something up, kick it all down, then build it again, better.
Still, there's something that does drive me crazy about workshops, and it's comments like “I just don't get it...” There's one student in particular who's a pro at giving such helpful information. Now, let's suppose that a good poem has a fine mix of mystery and straight talk. The straight talk will get you through the first couple readings, make you feel as if you at least understood what world the poem creates. The mystery, however, should be there enough to prompt you to read it repeatedly, to get joy out of teasing out the deeper meanings. When I first started reading poetry, I hated how it made me feel dumb for not understanding it immediately, upon the first read. It wasn't until I realized that the pros don't understand it the first time either, and that part of the joy is in the discovery, the unfolding of the mystery, that I first felt free to enjoy poetry at my own pace (and not feel dumb).
Now, I'm not going to say that my poem struck a perfect balance, but I will say that I think it made a damn good attempt. Most people either understood it right away, or came to understand it as they read it further or as it was discussed. This one student, however, could only offer “I guess it's supposed to make that kind of sense, but I think it should really have more things in it.” (Also, they didn't like my stanza structure because it didn't contribute to the meaning, and “we learned in class that the line breaks and stanzas we choose should mean something.” I understand how they seemed so arbitrary, considering they didn't understand the meaning the stanzas were to contribute to.)
When getting a piece workshopped, not all information is going to be on the mark. But, it still might speak to a problem elsewhere, so I try not to discount any of it. And, in the end it's my choice what to consider and what to forget. However, the student I'm been bitching about seems to be phoning it in. I don't think they read my poem more than twice. It's clear to me from this (and other incidences in class), that this student just isn't committed. I understand that one class may not be the most important thing in a student's life, but really, if you can't at least fake it, you're wasting your time as well as everyone else's.
The best part of all of this is, when it came time to workshop this student's poem, I didn't understand it one freaking bit. I laughed so hard at that. I guess I expected theirs to focus on the places that gave them trouble with mine. I must have read it twenty times, just to make sure it wasn't me. The problems were grammatical ambiguities (much like the pronoun soup above) that left too much up to question. I hope though that my comments went further than “I just don't understand” and were more helpful than the ones I received.

I actually planned to use this time to talk about some bigger stuff. Like, what the hell to do with my life, etc. But I think I might try to make a quick Peter Gabriel mix for the road trip I'm taking this weekend instead. I wonder if I can throw this together in the hour I have. There's so much to work with – you could easily make a PG mix in any mood. Damn.