In Good Company
Suppose you were a pretty good high school baseball player
in your day and have been for your whole life an avid major league baseball
fan. One ordinary spring day you go to
your mail box and find a roster of this year’s All Star game. You read it, and notice that your name is on
it—along with old time players like Willie Mays and Rod Carew and current
players like Mike Trout and Nelson Cruz.
That’s a little bit how I felt when, a couple of days ago, I
went to my mailbox and found a book of poems with the title Final Exam. It was a book containing eighty-five poems
written by sixty-five different poets, all of the poems about teachers and
their students. As I perused the index I
saw names like Jane Kenyon, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, Theodore Roethke, Carl
Sandberg, William Stafford and many more, a Who’s Who of American Poetry over
the last hundred years. I saw some of my
favorite poets and poems: John Ciardi’s “On
Flunking a Nice Boy out of School,” Howard Nemerov’s “September, the First Day
of School,” Linda Pastan’s “25th High School Reunion,” and Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We
Real Cool.”
Three major American novelists had a poem included: John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and Louise Erdrich. And, as you have figured out by now, I also
had a poem in the book--two poems, as a matter of fact.
As I perused the book, I recalled that well over a year ago
I had been asked by someone named J. Barry Koops if I would give him permission
to use a couple of my poems in an anthology he was preparing. I had, of course, given him permission. I did not know Koops but I recognized his
name as a Calvin College name. That
explains (though I don’t know precisely how he knew of me) how I managed to be
included in the anthology and why a number of other Calvin grads are included
as well: Rod Jellema, Stan Wiersma
(Sietze Buining), Randall VanderMey and Carl Kromminga.
This little blog is my not so subtle way of patting myself
on the back, and encouraging you to buy the book if you love poetry or are a
teacher who has loved your students, past and present: Final
Exam—Poems About Teachers and Their Students, edited by J. Barry Koops,
Brooks Street Books, 2020. $28.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the poem immediately preceding one
of my poems is by a guy named Geoffrey Chaucer.
Comments
Post a Comment