“Well, now that the late Miss Bultmann has arrived, hand her a syllabus, Mr. McConaghey, so we can then begin. This is a class, as I’m sure you’re aware, devoted to the major poets of the twentieth century, the century that is drawing to a close. Ours was a century that produced much remarkable writing, both prose and poetry. But, one could argue, and I do” he smirked “the achievements of the poets far outweigh those of the writers of prose. What else can you can conclude from one hundred years that began with John Betjeman, included Ted Hughes, Theodore Roethke, Richard Hugo, and Philip Larkin, and will conclude with John Ashbery and W. S. Merwin?”
This was clearly a rhetorical question, but the boy sitting next to Lizzie—the one who’d given her the syllabus—raised his hand. “Yes, McConaghey, what is it?” Terrell asked without any enthusiasm, as though he knew what was coming next and was already finished with it.
“You know, the reading that I’ve done about Eliot and Pound, in preparation for this class . . .”
(In preparation for this class? Lizzie thought incredulously. Who is this guy?)
“Yes?” Dismissively.
“Well, I wonder why we consider them major poets when they were not, in fact, particularly nice men. How can someone who’s—well, ‘evil’ is too strong a term—but at least someone who behaves immorally in significant ways, as well as being slimy in their interpersonal relationships—”
Terrell heaved a dramatic sigh. “Didn’t we go through this last quarter, McConaghey? Didn’t we discuss this for more hours than I, personally, care to remember? When we talked about all those Romantic poets? I’m sure we did. Perhaps you weren’t paying quite enough attention. ‘Mad, bad, and dangerous to know’—doesn’t that convey a certain je ne sais quoi when it comes to the treatment of the women in one’s life? And didn’t I argue convincingly enough for you that Byron was a great poet, though you wouldn’t want to leave him and your girlfriend together unchaperoned? Or your boyfriend, for that matter. Do you have such a person in your life, sir?”
Uneasy laughter rolled through the class. Without waiting for an answer, he went on. “And, Mr. McConaghey, don’t I recall from some of our ex parte conversations that at least two of your favorites—Housman, wasn’t it, and Larkin?—were not such upstanding individuals? Hadn’t they a few quirks, shall we call them, here and there? Anti-Semitism and so forth. Nastiness. Yet, in the case of Larkin, who amongst us could not be moved by ‘Dockery and Son’ or ‘Church Going’? Not you. Nor I. But don’t let me get started on Housman, of whom I’m not nearly as fond as you’ve indicated you are. Duh DUH duh DUH duh DUH duh DUH. ‘From Clee to heaven,’ forsooth. Spare me those green hills and dales of Shropshire.” He mimicked the voice of a young woman. ‘Oh, soldier, show me your sword.’ I don’t call that poetry but rather nausea-inducing.”
Lizzie immediately felt offended on behalf of the long-dead Housman, and she suspected that Mr. McConaghey, sitting beside her, did as well. There was more laughter from the class. It seemed that The Terror knew how to command his audience.
At this point in what could only be termed a rant, Terrell made an amazing face. It somehow combined a leer and a sneer. Lizzie felt sure she had seen both a leer and a sneer before, but never the two together. Assuming someone who was not Addison Terrell could ever duplicate it, it deserved its own name. Perhaps ‘sleer’?
“As for Pound, well, any man who can write that perfect poem ‘In a Station of the Metro’ has no need to fear for his immortal soul. Or any defense by me, particularly in front of a class of undergraduates who can barely distinguish between blank verse, free verse, and bad verse. Now, any more questions before I dismiss class so that you can all begin work on the first assignment?”
Some poor fool seated right behind Lizzie said, “Uh, Professor Terrell?”
“Yes,” Terrell said with exaggerated patience.
“How do you spell ‘Housman’?”
“Good Lord, who cares? There’s no possible reason you would ever need to write his name down.”
Lizzie, heart sinking as she listened to Terrell’s monologue, had been scanning the syllabus. She raised her hand.
“Ah, it seems that the late Miss—make that Ms., of course, in deference to the feminists that I am sure are amongst us—Bultmann has a question. Or a comment?”
“Question,” Lizzie said. “I don’t see Edna St. Vincent Millay on the syllabus. Are we going to read her this semester?”
Terrell stared at her with interest. “Are you demented?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious. Then, without waiting for her answer, went on, “You’re referring, I trust, to Edna St. Vincent O’Lay? That ‘Oh God, the pain’ girl? I can’t imagine that you would really think I’d include anyone, any poetess, who wrote about burning her candle at both ends.” Wiggling his eyebrows, he went on. “What in the world is that supposed to mean? That she was careless with matches? That she was a pyromaniac? But that’s not the worst of it—the line that makes me blench is ‘He turned to me at midnight with a cry.’ What was that cry? I wonder. ‘Yeeoww!’? ‘Whoopee!’? ‘Man the barricades!’? ‘Up and at ’em!’? Good Lord, the possibilities are seemingly endless.
“You, Jack,” he said, turning to Lizzie’s fellow Housman admirer. “You’re a great success with the girls, I suspect. Correct?”
“Not bad, I’d say, but by no means perfect.”
“Yet surely you can enlighten us: What is that particular cry at midnight?”
It took long enough for Jack to answer that Lizzie thought he might be ignoring the question. Then, with a wicked, knowing grin, he said, “I believe, sir, that it was probably something like ‘Oh, my God, I think I left the iron on.’”
Lizzie giggled, slightly ahead of the whole class breaking into laughter. Terrell chose not to respond to this directly. Instead he turned to Lizzie, who had been hoping that he’d forgotten her. But no.
“You, the O’Lay fan.” He scanned the class list. “Bultmann, wasn’t it?” She nodded.
“Let me hazard a guess in the form of a few declarative sentences. You write poetry. Little rhyming verses about the pain of young love, the agony of adolescence, each packed with trite observations on the beauty of the world and your own personal hell.”
Lizzie heard a sharp intake of breath from the boy—Jack—sitting next to her. He moved restlessly in his chair and she could feel him getting ready to speak.
“Wait a—” he began.
“Well, listen, Ms. Bultmann,” Terrell continued, his voice getting louder and louder. He slammed the grade book on the table in front of him and screamed, “I want no little-girl poets, no O’Lay wannabes, in my class. Do you hear me? Stop writing whatever sloppy verses come out of that head of yours or drop this class. Now.”
He flicked his hand, dismissing them all. “I have no high hopes for any of you. Go, thou, and, if you dare, read some poetry. Not your own poems, Ms. Bultmann. Never your own,” he concluded. “In fact, I’d suggest you burn them.”