Then we returned to poetry. His eyes got wide at the sight of my Norton Anthology of Poetry: “Ms. Kuo, that be bigger than the Bible.”
I found the Tennyson poem I wanted to talk about: He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
“What words sound alike? Don’t worry about what they mean.”
Patrick repeated the lines to himself, trying to hear their sound.
“Maybe crooked and crag.”
“Good. You’ve already got the heart of this lesson, and we haven’t even started. Any other sounds that sound alike?”
“Clasps and crag,” he concluded, after some thinking and muttering to himself.
“Exactly. Do you remember what vowels are?” At once I cringed at my wording: Do you remember. Bad pedagogy: It framed learning in terms of what he had failed to retain.
“A,” I said hastily.
Patrick blurted out, “E, I, O, U.”
He learned assonance quickly. “Could be close and lonely,” he said. And consonance, as well. “Lonely lands,” he said.
And then meter.
“Syllables. How many syllables are in your name? Patrick.”
He looked at me questioningly—he was about to apologize. “Patrick,” I interrupted, cutting him off. “Two. Pat”—I put up my thumb to indicate the first syllable—“and rick.” Now both my thumb and index finger were in the air. “See, two syllables.”
For an hour we practiced trochees and iambs. Trochees were long–short, I explained; iambs were short–long. I spouted off a list of arbitrary words and names. Patrick, Pam, tiger, belong. “Iamb or trochee?” His answers were sometimes haphazard, pure guesses. “Say it to yourself,” I advised. “Tiger, tiger,” he’d repeat. Eventually he got the hang of it. “That be long–short, ain’t it.”
Now I leafed through the Norton and found a poem by Yeats, “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.”
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,” Patrick began.“Enwrought,” he said next. I hadn’t taught enwrought, not seeing a point, and so his forehead now settled into quizzical lines. But the lines vanished when he reached the colors, golden and silver, which came so effortlessly that these words seemed like a reprieve, an oasis.
Patrick’s voice now relaxed. “Of night and light and the half-light.”
“What’s your favorite line?” I asked him. I didn’t want to bludgeon him with questions about theme or meaning.
He clasped his hands, thinking carefully.
I said, “There’s no right answer.”
His eyes followed the lines. Finally he decided. “The blue and the dim and the dark cloths.”
I was surprised. I realized I had expected that he would choose But I, being poor, have only my dreams. How stupid. Which line he loved—what moved him—I couldn’t know.
I asked, “Why is this your favorite line?”
“I don’t know, Ms. Kuo.”
I waited.
“Because it make me think about the sky. How it looks at night.”
“That’s lovely.”
He was squinting now.
“Yeah. Before it get dark.”
“See what the last words of each line are?”
“Feet,” he muttered. “Dreams,” he continued. “Feet…” Then, suddenly realizing the pattern, he laughed to himself.
“Why do you think he chooses to repeat those words?”
“?’Cause it’s all he has.”
It was a wonderful answer. I simply nodded.
“Okay,” I announced. “I think you’re ready.”
Patrick looked up, expectant.
“Let’s memorize this.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Right now.”
“Ms. Kuo, you crazy.”
For the next hour we practiced. “Of night and light and half-light,” he tried, not looking at the page. I said, “You’re missing a little word, one little syllable,” and he counted on his fingers. Yes, he’d forgotten: the half-light. Then he said, “I would spread the cloth,” and I stopped him and said, “Just one cloth?” And swiftly he corrected himself and said, “Cloths.”
—
AFTER JAIL IN the morning, I drove straight to KIPP and taught. By the time I got back to Danny and Lucy’s house, I was exhausted. On their couch, I read Patrick’s homework. I had run out of time during jail that day to read it. (“Can I take this home?” I asked, holding his notebook. “Does that mean I don’t have homework tonight?” he responded.)
To my beautiful baby Cherish. I remember when you were born you weighted only four pounds an three ounces. So tiny I was afraid of holding you. Danielle told me how fragile you would be. Also this look you gave me of a constant stare. When ever you was awake. More like the same mezmorized sensation I had for you. The humble smile you had at first. Im picturing it laughs whenever I hear you over the phone. Now that you’re a year an Five months old. Missing you crawl an take yo first steps. Has been a disappointment for the both of us I know…See you soon. We will catch up. Love yo Daddy.
It was better, wasn’t it? So tiny I was afraid of holding you. The word fragile. The same mezmorized sensation. I knew exactly, I thought, where he had picked up the word sensation—from the line Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror—but he had improved its context. And I loved how he pictured her laughing; we had talked about picturing people, picturing mountains, picturing oceans. There was the allusion to his disappointment—but at least it was spelled correctly.
It was already time for bed, but I still needed to grade my pile of Spanish tests—there were sixty in total, on verb conjugations of estudiar and hablar. Why in the world had I agreed to teach a language I didn’t know? I wished I had more time in jail to talk to Patrick about his work. What I really wanted to do in the Delta was becoming clear: teach Patrick. It was a utilitarian’s nightmare—Patrick was one, the KIPP kids were many. The likelihood of improving the odds of the younger, motivated, fresh-faced students at an institution hell-bent on getting them to college far eclipsed that of reversing the fate of a lone adult in a county jail.
I switched back to Patrick’s letter. I marked it up. I circled the an and wrote and. I wrote, Sweet, tender detail!
—
MY EMAIL TO Jordan looked like a breakup note: I have something I need to talk to you about.
I felt like I’d written a lot of these notes lately. I was turning into a real flake.
Jordan was nice about it. Who knows what he really thought.
Soon the only student I would have left was Patrick.
—
BY MID-DECEMBER, PATRICK and I had a ritual: We began each morning by reciting a poem.
“You go first, Ms. Kuo,” he’d say, teasing, gesturing with his hands, as if permitting me to walk through a door first. This was part of the ritual, too—neither of us wanted to go first.