Read this Brief Guide to Modernism and all of the biography of Wallace Stevens and be QUIZ-ready for Tuesday.
And this
Also, I think I hear a little Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock influence in this poem. A free absence (or forgiven absence) to the first person able to tell me where).
BTW,(see, I can text-speak and still swing an apostrophe)
I am loving your formal poems, You Shy Things.
I haven't posted this lately, so I will now. A gorgeous response poem and a reminder why you should never ask this question this way of your college professors. :-)
Did I Miss Anything?
Tom Wayman
Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours
Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 percent
Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose
Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring the good news to all people
on earth.
Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?
Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered
but it was one place
And you weren’t here
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