JANET CHARMAN

busy with the short teacher

‘candidates are advised to do a teaching observation
before they enter the profession’

the short
teacher
stands on a box
to reach the top
board
and as she stretches up
to print
spills from her wrist
a thread of gold

the class quiet inside

while she
speaks
to a boy
in the corridor           if you
work
you can pass

he comes back
in and sits
elsewhere

but throws his screw-up
at the rubbish tin on
his way
through

which
she
doesn’t notice
busy with
personification
and shushing
for speeches

asking
applause
applause for every fourth former finishing
and beginning
to video them
so
the ones who want to
can
try
again

break

and a standing student weeps
straight round her desk

embracing
them

the class

busy
with
don’t notice

Janet Charman was born in Auckland, spent parts of her childhood in the Hutt Valley and New Plymouth and now lives in Avondale with her partner and teenage children.

Charman has published six poetry collections. Five of these with Auckland University Press: She wrote much of Snowing Down South (2002) during her 1997 University of Auckland Literary Fellowship.  Cold Snack (2007) is her most recent collection.

Charman comments: ‘I worked as a secondary school teacher for seven years, until 2008 and this poem is dedicated, with great respect, to the educators who have allowed me to observe in their classrooms.

It is the opening poem in a longer sequence, which reflects on the mysteries of teaching and learning: Cold Snack, AUP 2007.’

Poem source details >

 

Links

New Zealand Book Council writer file
Auckland University Press author profile
nzepc—New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre: online work