Anne Sexton wrote this wonderfully provocative poem. I am unsure of her context for the poem, but an elegy is a lament or a mourning for something past. As with anything, when we grow past the love and passion for what we do and the compassion for the people we do it with it is time to take our leave. I want to be remembered as ‘gracefully insane’ or eccentric. I love learning with my students and their families the second greatest reward I can receive. The first is learning with my family. I think, in both cases, I could be called somewhat ‘disarranged’.
Teaching is a place of great creative for me and fills a whole in the hole of my soul.
Oh my, Anne Sexton discovered and chose great words for teachers.
In the thin classroom, where your face
was noble and your words were all things,
I find this boily creature in your place;
find you disarranged, squatting on the window sill,
irrefutably placed up there,
like a hunk of some big frog
watching us through the V
of your woolen legs.
Even so, I must admire your skill.
You are so gracefully insane.
We fidget in our plain chairs
and pretend to catalogue
our facts for your burly sorcery
or ignore your fat blind eyes
or the prince you ate yesterday
who was wise, wise, wise.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
Teacher as Transformer 
I can just picture you “squatting in the windowsill”.
Great poem.
Thank you Tony. I don’t have windowsills, but tables and shelves work well.
๐
My mom has worked at the local school for nigh on 30 years – her predecessor stayed way past deranged phase and mom’s tag line is, “Well, I’d like to work for as long as I can, but please, tell me if I start acting crazy”
It is always good to have someone we trust telling us when we seem a little off. Having said that, I like to think I am eccentric so it is hard to tell if I am a little off.
LOL – My dad used to say, “If someone loves you, you’re eccentric – if they don’t, you’re just crazy.”
I like that and will remember it.
delicious such vivid imagery…
Yes, there is. The poet just came up with words which catch the eye and the heart all at once.
My own brief experience of teaching was as rewarding as my experience as a student. In the end, both are much the same … an exchange, if you will, inflow as well as outflow. I love this poem and have wondered about “boily” … but then we poets do take our liberties. These days that actually has its own urban meaning.
Yes, Jamie we talked about this in class today and told the students, “As poets, we get to make up words.” They seemed unsure about my encouragement.
fantastic poem!
Thank you. It was one I had not come across before and it spoke to me.