Authors: Mary Chase Comstock
English department
politics were known for their viciousness throughout academe, but at Northwest
University, they generally translated into petty rivalries and apathetic
innuendo. This was different—something was up. That much was clear.
Why would Michael Priestly, the department chair,
suddenly abdicate his position on her tenure committee? After all the to-do
he'd made over the Dovinger, it just didn't make sense. A number of
possibilities came to mind, laziness among them, although the explanation
Willard offered wasn't one of them. Michael's specialty might be Victorian
literature, but as department chair, he kept abreast of both modern poetry and
current approaches to the teaching of writing. Besides, Michael suffered from
the arrogance of most professors. She doubted he'd ever admit to a lack of
expertise, regardless of how appalling his inadequacy might be. No, there was
definitely something else going on.
Bess Seymour
appeared in the office just then.
She
was one of the faculty Deirdre had liked from their first meeting and felt
inclined to trust. At a conservative institution like Northwest University,
Bess was openly feminist and a lesbian. While the faculty might argue the
virtues of recognizing diversity, most of them made sure they fit a
conventional mode—at least on the outside. Bess lived her convictions.
"Congratulations on the Dovinger, Deirdre,"
Bess said, "I know it hasn't been officially announced yet, but we thrive
on rumors in the English department."
"Thanks, Bess."
"You don't look very happy, though. What's up?"
"Just an early encounter with Freemont
Willard," Deirdre grumbled.
Bess snorted. "Is that vile piece of vomitous
garbage around today? Where's the oil slick?"
Deirdre glanced over her shoulder. "Can you think of
any reason Michael would ask Freemont to take his place on my review committee
all of a sudden?" she asked.
"Michael
asked
him?"
"Freemont claims that Michael felt insecure about
reviewing someone in my field."
"Michael, insecure?" Bess gave a brief laugh.
"It certainly doesn't keep him from pontificating on everything from
Austen to Zolà. Besides, he's been sitting on review committees for the past fifteen
years here, and most of them outside his field."
"That's what I thought," Deirdre muttered. She
remembered Freemont's leering smile, and felt as if she had stepped on a slug
barefoot. The urge to curl her toes was almost overwhelming.
Bess took a moment to sort through her mail, tossing most
of it in the recycle basket as she did so. "We need to have lunch
sometime, Deirdre," she said when she looked up again. "Soon. The
sooner the better, in fact. I've been wanting to talk to you anyway—and now seems
now is a very good time all of a damn sudden."
"All right," Deirdre answered slowly. Although
she liked Bess, they weren't close and had never socialized. She wondered at
this sudden, unprecedented invitation. "Any hints?"
She shook her head. "Let's just make sure it's well
off campus—all right?"
Her tone of voice made Deirdre glance over her shoulder.
"How about tomorrow?"
Bess nodded. "I'll meet you at Dmitri's at one
tomorrow. We'll have a late lunch." She leaned closer and whispered,
"Prepare yourself for filth—I'm going to tell you some secrets.”
VIII.
When Deirdre returned to her office, the morning's
conversations with Freemont and Bess buzzed around her head like persistent
mosquitoes. Worse than buzzing, though, she felt as if she'd been bitten as
well .Their hints itched like bites gone bad and scratching didn't help.
Neither of them had said much, but the comments of both were similarly laced
with dark, nasty hints.
At least their mysterious innuendoes had taken her mind
off yesterday's misadventures. Now, it was time to go to class.
"An
Introduction to Poetry Writing" was mainly attended by sophomores with a
scattering of juniors who still needed to get their fine arts requirement out
of the way. Only a few of them were English majors. It was her favorite class.
The poetry these students wrote tended to be fresher and much less pretentious
than that of the creative writing majors who took her advanced seminar. They
were also far more open to suggestion and criticism.
Even though most professors considered the class a
write-off, one that could be taught with little or no preparation, Deirdre felt
more strongly about it. Poetry had been her salvation. Not that her verse had
ever been beautiful or uplifting. It was, in fact, the opposite—a clear
reflection, for those who could read between the lines, of the hell that had
once been her life. That's why she wanted to stay at the university. To
transmute the past and salvage the future. Like a literary social worker, she
wanted to open the way for other victims of life's cruel vagaries.
As her students filed into the classroom, good-natured
jocks, mascara'd goths, prom queens, and outcasts, she wondered what horrors
their fresh faces might mask. The statistics on child abuse alone, physical,
mental and sexual, indicated that at least half of them were dealing with their
own private demons. Did any of them guess that her assignments were
specifically designed as therapy? Probably not. People who suffered rarely
understood that they were not alone. Worse, many of them probably thought they
themselves were to blame for their troubles.
It was still early in the term, so she had not yet introduced those
writing exercises designed to tap the depths of one's psyche, but today seemed
a good time to begin.
"I know this is a writing class," she began
once they were seated, "but today we're going to start by drawing."
A
groan went up followed by whispers of, "I can't draw a straight
line."
"Don't worry about your expertise,” she went on.
“You're the only one who's going to see it besides me. This is just an exercise
to tap the other side of your brain. You'll be surprised at what comes up if
you give this a chance."
She looked around the room. Most faces were glued on
hers, but two or three looked down at their notebooks. "I want you to
think back to your past, to when you were a child." A few more began
looking out the window.
"I want you to think of the things that scared
you."
"Why are we doing this?" a girl in the back row
asked. Mattie Berringer was ordinarily agreeable and docile, but now her voice
sounded rebellious, even angry.
"Poetry can't always be about hearts and
flowers," Deirdre replied evenly. For a moment, she wondered if perhaps
there was someone here with worse scars than her own. It was a cruel world.
Still, it would be hard to go back now. If Mattie didn't want to participate,
she didn't have to.
"All I ask is that you give this a chance. If it
doesn't work for you, try another approach. Just make sure you end by writing a
poem."
Deirdre took a breath and went on, "The symbols we
use in our writing reflect both the light and the dark of our souls. Now, let's
take a minute before we begin. Does anyone have a memory they don't mind
sharing?"
After a moment, a football player up front raised a paw.
"It sounds totally stupid now," he said with a grin, "but when I
was a kid, I used to think the neighbor lady was a witch."
Scattered laughter rippled across the room. "Why'd
you think that, Scott?" someone asked. "Did she have gingerbread dudes
in the garden?"
Scott blushed but went on, "I don't know about that,
but her cookies tasted like dog biscuits.
She tried to be nice, I think, but she lived in a creepy house, and the
older kids in the neighborhood told me she ate cats and put spells on little
kids. They showed me a bunch of cat food cans in her garbage and said she used
the food to lure the cats into her backyard. She was probably just poor and was
eating cat food, but, boy! At the time, I kept out of her way."
"That's
the kind of thing I mean," Deirdre said. "So Scott could draw a
picture of his neighbor or her house. Anyone else?"
Several hands went up. "Hey, Scott," one of the
other football players piped up, "I've got you beat for stupid! You know
how conservative my parents are? Well, when I was little I was afraid that
democrats were going to break into the house at night."
The class laughed and Deirdre with them.
"Yeah," he continued, "I didn't even know
what a democrat was, but I heard my mom and dad talk about them like they were
from the
Dawn of the Dead
, so I guess
that explains it."
"So does he have to draw a picture of the
Governor?" another student asked.
"Well," Deirdre hedged, "that's up to
Brett. But I think you all have the idea now. Draw your pictures and when
you're done, I want you to list the words and phrases that your picture brings
to mind. Later, we'll talk about arranging the words into lines of
poetry."
The impromptu poetry exercise went well, Deirdre thought
as she looked over the poems that had been turned in at the end of class. Now
that she had taught for almost three years, she was no longer surprised when
accident proved more powerful than design.
Mattie's poem was interesting, as she'd anticipated it
might be:
Pup
howls away the night as
full
moon smiles warnings:
Watch
for hands that steal dreams,
Watch
out yourself, Oh pretty one!
The rest was scratched out, almost violently it seemed.
Deirdre wasn't sure what to make of it, but the staccato rhythm hinted at
something hiding beneath the surface which might come out some day. She hoped
it was for the best. She had to believe it would be—but only if something could
be done to stop the nightmares before they began.
By the time she had finished reading through the drafts,
Deirdre had only an hour to prepare for the advanced poetry seminar. She
usually began class by reading a short poem to the class and talking about it
for a few moments. She had been planning on someone nice and sane like Carl
Sandburg, but now he didn't seem right anymore. She leaned back in her chair
and scanned the bookshelves. Frost, Hopkins, Eliot, Kumin, Keizer…Dickinson.
Yes.
Part of what bothered her about Freemont Willard was his
insistence on referring to her as the department's "little Emily
Dickinson." His insinuation that women poets were sweet little fluffs to
be petted and disregarded made her sick. There was nothing sweet or fluffy
about herself—or Emily Dickinson, for that matter—despite outward prettiness.
Perhaps it should be Dickinson for class this afternoon, then. One of her poems
with some gut. She leafed through the anthology:
My Life
had stood – a Loaded Gun –
In
Corners – till a Day
The
Owner passed – identified –
And
carried Me away –
That was it, she decided
immediately. She scanned the lines, remembering their power, remembering the
first time she had read Dickinson’s poetry on her own without the guiding
influence of a teacher. It was raw passion. Regret. Fearless disregard for the
expected.
Though I than He – may longer live
He
longer must – than I –
For I
have but the power to kill,
Without
– the power to die –