It begins to go wrong as soon as I enter the building
and announce myself to the school secretary.
She has never heard of me, and assuming I’ve come
for the job of assistant caretaker, suggests I wait
in the corridor. So I sit outside the Headmaster’s office
with the day’s delinquents: fourteen-year-olds twice my size
who smirk and grow spots before my very eyes.
One by one we move along. My palms are sweating now.
Will I get the chance to explain who I am and what
I’m doing here? I doubt it, at the speed at which
he’s stamping out villainy. Will I get detention?
Be expelled? Worse still, will I get the job?
Luckily, I’m saved by the bell. The Head of English
arrives in time to whisk me off to the staffroom
for a quick coffee. Over a scalding beaker of Gnatscafé,
he tells me that the 6th form are great fans of my work,
and I begin to relax, seeing myself in the library
with a score of young intellectuals, bright-eyed girls
and shy young men, eager to explore the jewel-encrusted
caverns of my soul… However, they are all far too busy
studying English Literature to see me,
and so a visit to 4N has been arranged instead.
‘They hate school and everything about it,’ he enthuses,
‘especially poetry, so we thought ninety minutes with you
might do the trick.’
I clap my hands, and balancing the beaker
on the end of my nose follow him down the corridor
like the tame seal I am about to become.
In the calm before the cull, the Head of English
revs up the class with tales of The Scaffold… Who?
Before putting on a Birmingham accent
and misquoting poems I wish I had never written
… and occasionally haven’t.
He then leaves me to it, first locking the door behind him.
I enter the ring and throw in a poem.
A girl in the front row yawns and swallows it.
Her mate blows it out in a cherry-flavoured bubble.
They continue to chew in rhythm against me
with synchronized hostility, and my job
is to catch them off guard. On a good day I succeed,
when the poems, not me, do the talking.
Having won them over, the rest of the class is easy,
and in some cases even headphones are removed.
At the end of the reading the kids applaud.
Ask questions… About how much I earn,
and where I buy my shoes. The bell goes
and I walk out into the sunlight, a free man.