I'm taking a poetry class, of all things. Three favorite poets comprise the theme, which made the course half tailored. We have to write in this class: two exercises in vivo and one poem drawn over a week. Homework! With what time do I write poems? Stolen time, I guess—stolen from the likes of this: Today I passed the afternoon pulling papers from envelopes from boxes feeding numbers from the pages into a statistical program through a proxy co-author—an afternoon of seething. Thank god our thoughts are still private.

I'd sworn off classes at Hugo House, for the cost and the lacklustness. I'd like a little more rigor for the price, a little more intellectual play. There's only so much you can glean from the definitions of rhymes or meters. From This worked for me, This didn't work for me. From Nice, Good, or nods as everyone reads their homework. From the There's one in every class:

The old fancies-herself-a-poet lady: flamboyant dress and gesture, intrusive and demanding speech, deaf as they come (and trying to hide it). There's one in every class. When she reads from the testament, watch the poem change before your eyes. No matter the assignment, she writes verse in the inverse: lines justified right, the trailing line end bleeding left.

Yes, There's one in every class: The angsty gutter punk post-teen, always late and first to leave. She hides pathology under a large coat and paints an addiction around her eyes. She sits slumped over, failing at eye contact and speech for two hours. No matter the assignment, she writes about sex, at which point she bellows bloody thighs and razor biting lips in terse lines that culminate in a one-word monosyllabic ending. I'm lost to empathy and have to hide a giggle. I want to support the legitimacy of the youthful perspective but it's just so bad!