In a room filled with lounging kids in flip-flops and T-shirts, he was the odd man out. Only his hair—dark blond and longer than she’d expect from such a precise guy, and messy as if he’d already run his fingers through it in frustration—matched the general laid-back style of college students.
“First thing we do is move all these desks. I need a semicircle with my chair and podium at the center.” Angela pulled her chair away from the wall and then motioned at her audience, who had not moved an inch. “Now. Move your desks into a circle.” She waved her arms broadly, and the loud clatter of the scramble to follow her directions filled the air.
When all the dust settled again, she was directly opposite Mr. Starch, who might hate every minute of her creative writing class. At this vantage point, she’d have a good view of his face, which was hard to read. Instead of the pain and fatigue she’d seen on his face at registration, all she could see was calm.
Since the whole class was now waiting on her to do something, she had to get her head back in the game.
“Take a syllabus and pass the stack to your neighbor.” Angela reached up to put the thumb drive in the laptop that ran the A/V in the room and picked up the remote. “First question and every answer gets a point.” Students were crazy for points. After all, lots of points meant better grades. Still, they came in the door anxious to find the quickest way to beat the grading system. “Why are you here?”
This process always went the same way. The two or three overachievers who were either trying to pad their grades or graduate early raised their hands and immediately gave polished, inoffensive answers. To broaden their writing skill. To gain useful knowledge.
There were always a few whose inspiration wasn’t clear—she wondered how they made the decision to get out of bed in the morning. Those students usually shrugged. They had to enroll in something.
It was easy to forgive both of those groups, since there were always one or two people who had the spark, the wonder or fear or hope that this could be what they were searching for, the thing that convinced them it was okay to need to write. Those kids she’d love until the day she withered into dust like the frail pages of an original folio of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
She waited until the flurry of answers died down.
That left Mr. Starch. The wild card. He cared too much about his appearance to be in the don’t-care group, but the true overachiever would never have asked the question he had at registration. True overachievers might want the easy A, but they wouldn’t advertise the fact.
She pointed at him. “First name, please.”
“Jason,” he answered in a rough rumble. Calling on him was a gamble. That might be enough to send him running for the hills. “And I’m here because someone suggested I try it.”
Someone. She met his stare, and he dipped his chin as if to acknowledge her look. He wasn’t going to back down. It appeared he also refused to call her out. This would be fun.
“Five weeks. That’s all we have here. Five weeks for you to learn about the forms that creative writing takes, to give it a shot, experiment, find out what works for you and what doesn’t, and most important, to experience the terror of having someone else read what you wrote. Out loud. In public. Where everyone can love it or hate it.”
She crossed her legs and was more gratified than she should have been that Mr. Starch noticed. His eyes drifted down before snapping back to her face. The two of them had dressed for success instead of comfort. Dressing in her professorial best, a suit and heels, on the first day was about setting expectations. Today, it had the bonus of making her look and feel like a boss.
“Terror,” drawled the surfer dude who she would guess had aspirations of being a business mogul and was planning to hang out in a writing course. “Terror? That can’t be right. This is the easiest A on campus.” As he slumped forward in his seat, his expression suggested he was annoyed at the miscommunication.
“I was wondering when this might come up, so thank you for being honest.” Angela pulled up her roster of students. “Your name is?”
He straightened his shoulders and tugged on the edge of his Sawgrass T-shirt. “Brad.” No last name. As if that would protect him.
“Right. Brad Oliver.” Angela made a check mark, not that it meant anything or mattered. “If I worried about points, I’d give you another point for that, Brad. Good job.” He didn’t appear to be reassured. When she explained the difference of her grading system for this class, students always grew more anxious. “No points in this class. Here’s how you get an easy A.” She cleared her throat and absorbed the silence in the room. Why was this so much fun? Hard to say, but if she had to guess, there was only one other person in the room who understood how much she was enjoying herself. Mr. Starch had relaxed a bit in his seat, as if he was liking the show.
Jason. That was his name. She checked her list. Jason Ward.
“It really is as easy as this.” Angela advanced her PowerPoint to the slide titled “So You Want to Make an A.” It was the only slide about grades. “Do the work. Over five weeks, we will cover some basic and broad distinctions in creative writing. Poetry. Flash fiction. Creative nonfiction. We will glance briefly at movie reviews and travel writing. I’ve given you a list of reading. It’s all available with an easy web search.
“You will turn in four pieces of your own writing. The first will be a poem. The last will be the summary and first chapter of a novel of whatever genre you choose. They will be anonymous when they are distributed, but as a class, we will read them. The other assignments are your choice. We will critique them. You will make the decision whether to own your writing and defend it or talk about what your intentions were after we read it. That’s where the terror comes in.”
She always paused here for emphasis.
“Yes, it’s possible to be no good at this. It really is.” Angela made sure she met each person’s eyes. “It’s not easy listening to other people judge the words you put on paper. It never is, and the more you care, the harder it gets.” She shrugged. “But if you want to write, you’ve got to come to terms with it. Every piece you write will be an improvement. And those of you who said it would be a good skill for whatever you do, you were right. This is a skill you’ll need in the corporate world or running your own business. Putting yourself out there and learning to roll with whatever the world gives you back? Man, that’s the lesson of a lifetime.”
Angela hoped her words were sinking in. Her eyes met Jason’s across the circle.
In two short encounters, she’d seen him irritated and amused. His face was absolutely sober now. The two of them were old enough to understand that sometimes rolling with the punches wasn’t that easy. Sometimes the world knocked a person down.
“Do the work. Come to class. Join the discussion. Get your A.” Angela sighed. “Along the way, you’ll learn something. Easy.”
If the full dozen made it to the end of the semester, it would be unusual. In the fall and spring semesters, the attrition rate was low. In these summer semesters, there was little time to gear up for the public criticism, and she’d lose several to the pressure before the semester was over. The ones who stayed would be better for it.
“First up. Everybody loves poetry, right?” Angela grinned at the mix of disgruntled faces staring back at her. They only thought they hated poetry. She could teach them differently. “Some of it rhymes, a lot of it doesn’t, but what you can count on is imagery and the rhythm of language and the choices you make. It’s often condensed, so each word demands power. Somebody name your favorite poet.”
Silence was heavy at this point. The first student she’d noticed with a spark raised her hand and Angela motioned her to lower it. “Spit it out. Don’t interrupt each other, but I’m asking for your input here.”
The student tugged uncertainly on a braid hanging over her shoulder. “I enjoy reading black poets. Maya Angelou or Nikki
Giovanni.”
Angela clasped her hands together, thrilled to have at least one reader. “Good answers, good examples of how word choice and the cadence of language affects tone in poetry. What’s your name?”
“Nikki.” She wrinkled her nose. “My mom is a fan, too.”
“Awesome, Nikki.” After checking her class roster, Angela nodded. “My mom used to read poetry to me. That’s how I learned to love it. Her favorite? Edna St. Vincent Millay. Edna. Angela. They aren’t so far apart, I guess, but I’m glad she didn’t name me after Edna. My favorite poet changes by the day. Nikki is a great name. Nikki Giovanni writes with power and intensity. Maybe you will, too.” The girl’s smile bloomed broader as she pushed her braids over her shoulder. She was one to watch. Nikki already had the spark. All she needed was oxygen to feed the fire. “Who else has a favorite?”
She heard the usuals. Emily Dickinson. Langston Hughes. Shakespeare. All worthy choices that had been thoroughly covered in high school English classes.
Finally, Jason straightened, and Angela felt the tingle all the way down her spine. This was going to be good.
“Do song lyrics count?” he asked, that rough edge of his voice sharpening her attention and her interest.
Student. He’s a student.
Angela wanted to pat him on the shoulder or encourage this. Clapping would be unacceptable. For some reason, maybe it was the roughness of his voice or his starchy outside, but she had the impression Jason didn’t open himself up to being wrong often, and he’d done it.
“Of course, song lyrics count,” Angela said. “One of the most amazing pieces of creative writing and poetry to me? Rap. Old-school, new, whatever. The way words flow and build a beat in your head and commit images to memory. That’s poetry. Country, bluegrass, folk music from the sixties... There’s a story being told in images. Before we wrote things down, we memorized stories with beats and mental pictures and words.”
She hoped Jason would be one of the students to make it all the way to the end of the semester. Whatever he was controlling, the piece of him that was asking for guidance in the hallway of a college administration building, it was going to be interesting to get to know.
“So, Jason, what music speaks to you?” Angela asked, prepared to agree with whatever came out of his mouth. Even death metal would have some kind of connection if she dug deep.
“Lots of music, but based on your description of images and the power of the words...” He paused.
Was he regretting his decision to step out? She hoped not. This was all part of the process.
“Smokey.” He cleared his throat. “Smokey Robinson. ‘My Girl.’ It gets at the way love, especially when it’s new, makes a man float, bright and warm, sunshiny. He’s bouncing along and ready to tell the world.” His lips tightened. “Maybe.”
In the seconds before she could answer, Angela realized she’d tangled her fingers together in a hard knot.
As if the anticipation had been too much.
But his answer... She hadn’t expected it.
“Smokey. What a great answer.” She stood to pace while she tried to get a handle on the fizz of excitement that percolated inside. “And that’s it exactly. The words. The music. Everything works together to create emotion. The poet or songwriter makes careful choices to give you that bubble and the connection that crosses time and location because it’s part of being human. With Smokey, you also have the joy of his voice, which brings to mind the difference between reading a poet’s words and hearing them spoken. Poetry gains power when it’s spoken.”
Angela cleared her throat. “For the flip side of that bounce and uncontainable joy, you have ‘Tears of a Clown.’ Anybody in here been forced to fall out of love before you were ready? That’s a song about putting on a brave face, pretending you are absolutely okay for the whole world, but when you’re alone, the tears fall, the hurt shows. It’s meaningful and it lasts. Great choice, Jason.”
For too long, she watched him absorb the fact that he’d given an honest answer and she’d agreed. When she realized the silence was stretching, she clicked the remote. “And we’re moving on. If any of you are songwriters, I’d suggest talking with Dr. Li. She’s the best guitar player I’ve heard, and she loves to talk about what she knows. Here we go. Somebody mentioned Shakespeare’s sonnets, an excellent example of working within the constraints of poetic form, in this case line length, rhyme scheme and a set number of syllables for each line. That’s a lot of rules, but there’s a power in that control.”
She pointed up at the screen. “Like I said, this class is easy. Experience the thrill and terror of having your best efforts read and discussed in public. As simple as that. Today we’re going to dissect some images written by poets who aren’t here to bleed from the tiny cuts of our critique. We’ll start critiques on Monday, so this week, I need a poem from everyone in this class, because that’s the reason we’re here. My grading is a single check mark. Yes, you turned something in on time. Check.”
One quick survey of each student’s face revealed what she’d come to expect. Some of them trusted her. Some of them didn’t. The class would shrink after the first critique session. It always did.
Nikki raised her hand again and slowly lowered it as Angela shook her head. “Are we going to read any of your poetry, Dr. Simmons?”
Now, this was interesting. No one had ever asked her that. Lots of teachers used their works as examples, but that intensified the power of criticism in Angela’s experience. Students exerted themselves to find something to critique when the “expert” teacher was the subject. The bad reviews hurt worse and were almost inevitable.
“Not as examples. I could slip in one of my works in progress for critique.” Angela shrugged out of her suit jacket. “Maybe if I’m bulletproof one day.”
Nikki smiled at her answer.
She watched Jason Ward slip on glasses and flip open a notebook as she advanced to the next slide, which listed the requirements of the Elizabethan sonnet. Over the week, she’d race through different poetry forms and styles and end with the freedom and challenges of modern free verse.
Jason Ward would no doubt take careful notes about each.
That much she was certain of.
The anticipation she felt about his contribution made little sense. He might lack any creativity. His appearance suggested conventional rules suited him the best.
But tossing out “My Girl” in a room of tried-and-true textbook answers? She had her fingers crossed for unpredictable. In her experience, summer classes could be a grind. Many of the students didn’t want to be there, so no matter how much she loved the subject matter, pulling them along was hard work.
She was already looking forward to next week. She hoped Jason’s words lived up to the anticipation.
CHAPTER FOUR
AFTER A GOOD WEEK, filled with enough physical therapy, college classes and errands for his mother to keep him busy, Jason had hit the lull of Friday night. His mother was playing cards in her facility’s poker tournament. She’d invited him to watch. The fact that he’d almost accepted her invitation was something he’d have to come to terms with. The lack of distraction teamed up with the complete silence made it impossible to rest.
Jason stretched out his leg and tried to ignore the throb. His last physical therapy appointment had been the stuff of legends, almost as if Terry, the five-foot-nothing trainer who’d gotten him up and walking again, was determined to prove to them both that Jason could handle whatever physical obstacles the world could toss at him. He was almost convinced the prosthesis would hold, no matter the terrain he threw at it.
Earlier, his mother had dropped him off at home in the electric-blue convertible she’d chosen to rent for a week—to test the waters, she’d said. He’d then showered away the sweat brought on by enough exercise to wear out a man with two good legs, attempted to make his own dinner and l
owered himself to his favorite seat at the kitchen table to contemplate his homework.
For the past half hour, he’d stared blankly at the wall while his television, tuned to some baseball game he didn’t care a thing about, provided background noise.
While he was out and about, getting home and removing his prosthesis had been his only goal, a sign to himself that he’d done something hard and could rest. Relax. There was no reason to stare up at the flat white paint on the ceiling over his bed or to flip through channel after channel on the television before giving up. He’d done everything he had to do. He should be able to settle.
No matter how hard he worked during the day, at night the restless need to move settled in. Nobody to talk to. No paperwork to finish. Since that had been the part of his job he hated the most, filling out forms to requisition items or report on deliveries made, missing it was a bad sign. For years, he’d spent so little time alone that now here he was, all by himself, and there was nothing to concentrate on but the quiet.
“You should be exhausted,” he muttered to himself, irritated all over again at how difficult it was to fall asleep. For most of his life, he’d been able to sleep in whatever fits and starts were available to him. Now? There were long, beautiful stretches of uninterrupted time when he could sleep, but all he did was lie awake, getting madder and madder at himself and the smooth, boring white ceiling he was looking at, until he was forced to get up.
None of it made sense, not the insomnia or the anger.
As Jason scrolled through the poetry website on the Poet’s syllabus, he scanned the titles. “Professor Simmons” was stuffy. “Dr. Simmons” was worse. In his head, “Angela” worked but “the Poet” was safer. He admired her cleverness. If she’d mentioned she was the teacher at registration, would he have signed up?
Angela Simmons was good at her job. The students sitting in a circle had started to follow her steps around the classroom the way a flower turns toward the sun. She was captivating when she lectured, likely because she loved it. That was easy to see. If he was being honest, ever since her first glowing approval of his Smokey answer, he’d weighed every comment he made. He wanted the same glow every time she responded to him. After watching her talk so passionately about poetry for a week, he had a bad feeling he hadn’t outgrown having a crush on his professor.
A Soldier Saved--A Clean Romance Page 4