He could barely believe what he\u2019d seen on that blog, that \u201cAmy Tells All.\u201d It came to his attention via a search that led from one thing to the next like wildfire. Having arrived at it, he couldn\u2019t retrace his steps. There was no need. Never mind how he found it, he bookmarked it. His eyes first fell on the title \u201cOff Duty Professor,\u201d which seemed to be a pun on \u2018off duty policeman.\u2019 He emitted a snort. His eye raced down the page, and there was his own name. John. Who is this woman? Does she know me? He read the page again. And then he read the page again. The little wisp of a poem seemed like nothing at first, but when he tried saying it out loud, it had a rather telling, mordant effect. The fact that she framed it in an imagined dialogue with an older man gave her the opportunity to try to regard her poem as an outsider might. Her imagined interlocutor is given much license to regard her as a woman. It is not, as she presents it, an appropriate teacher student relationship. Or is the line about her being a \u201clovely woman with every gift\u201d about her writing talent. Surely Amy imagines it to be both. She wishes to be seen as a sexy young woman with talent. Of course! Why not? She imagines a big response. The man cried over it. Julian hadn\u2019t. <\/p>\n
He was, however, impressed enough flip back through the blog to see what else Amy had told of. What he found there enchanted him, and he couldn\u2019t quite put his finger on why. Yes, the photographs of the woman captured some serious allure. She was certainly, as \u201cProfessor Jonathan\u201d had described her \u201clovely.\u201d Julian was used to seeing alluring young women. He taught at a college. He\u2019d gotten used to it. He screened it out. It was a professional necessity to screen it out. It was, as his colleagues were fond of saying, a matter of \u2018professional boundaries,\u2019 Her writing voice was what grabbed him. Also, the situation the woman was in, although he couldn\u2019t quite put his finger on exactly what it was, given the evidence of the text, had the vague suggestion of something dire. She came across as compromised, a \u201cbird in a gilded cage,\u201d profoundly vulnerable, a \u2018damsel in distress\u2019 without an address. He could figure out where she generally was on the planet; Parkersburg and environs are clearly described in witty elisions and allusions. She plainly invents sobriquets, keeping her characters anonymous. A Google search for \u201cAmy Lissa\u201d turns up only the blog itself. There was no way, with ordinary information gathering tools, to discover the identity of the author of Amy. It might not even be a woman. No telling. Driving over to Parkersburg and hanging out at the Bald Eagle airstrip seems like a patently bad (dangerous) idea.<\/p>\n
Yet the effect the encounter with the writing and pictures of \u2018Amy Lissa\u2019 had on John Julian Gray was remarkable. He found his apathy and ennui erased. He looked forward to reading her new posts and to rereading her old ones. <\/p>\n
He looked at \u201cAmy Tells All\u201d for a period of weeks and then he decided to just subscribe to it. He might have left a comment, but Amy had disabled commenting. The email notifications of new posts were labeled no-reply. Amy had thought of everything in the construction of her firewall. He also felt it bad form to pry. His was the sort of mind that lacked certain kinds of discipline. He found himself, little by little, invested in a certain amount of prying.<\/p>\n
He also decided, since he felt that a certain amount of youth decoding was in order, and since he had an endless supply of youth available to him, to share her with his students.<\/p>\n
One fine morning, about two weeks of Amy reading, he faced his 9 AM Lit 1 class with a vague plan. He showed up disheveled as usual. As usual, he went right the whiteboard and started scribbling while the students filed in and got settled. This day he scribbled the URL to that \u201cAmy Tells All\u201d post about the \u2018off duty professor.\u2019 He had a notion that his students might help him get to the bottom of it.
\n\t\u201cOK, gang. Here\u2019s your destination. Start typing and clicking.\u201d
\nHe gazed at them while they fumbled for their computers and phones and went for Amy.
\nAfter a moment, there were giggles.
\n\t\u201cHey, Julian, did you write this?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYeah, it sounds like you. It sounds like she\u2019s talking about you.\u201d
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s just way not real.\u201d
\nHe sat on the edge of a big brown desk left over from some former incarnation at Blue Ridge, and listened. At last he said,
\n\t\u201cIt does sound like she knows me. She describes me pretty well. Sort of. I mean, I hope I wouldn\u2019t address a student so inappropriately.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWell, she\u2019s making it up. It\u2019s her fantasy. \u2018Young teacher \u2013 er old teacher \u2013 no offense Porfessor Gray \u2013 the subject of school girl fantasy.\u201d
\n\t\u201cAre you sure youo didn\u2019t write this as a joke? It seems like something you\u2019d do to make fun of us!\u201d
\n\t\u201cYeah, it does, doesn\u2019t it? But no, I didn\u2019t.\u201d
\n\t\u201cIs this even a real person, this Amy?\u201d
\n\t\u201cGood question, Josh. I had the same thought. Is it even a woman?\u201d
\n\t\u201cOh it\u2019s a woman.\u201d
\n\t\u201cSarah, how do you know?\u201d
\n\t\u201cWell, she\u2019s got this bit here about getting her period.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThat doesn\u2019t prove anything. I could have written that.\u201d
\n\t\u201cAre you getting your period, Julian?\u201d
\nLaughter in peals at this.
\n\t\u201cCould be. I\u2019m feeling a little crampy.\u201d
\nThis sets them off all over again.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhy are you showing us this?\u201d
\n\t\u201cAh, Ashley, leave it to you to ask a good, if possibly unanswerable question. I found this woman\u2019s blog, if that\u2019s what this person is, and I thought it was good writing, and that it had a haunted quality about it. I wanted to lay it on you all, to get your opinion.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI think it\u2019s a woman. Usually dudes are just not that involved in shoes, shopping, weight loss or gain. Stuff like that.\u201d
\n\t\u201cOK, Zack. I\u2019m with you on that. I only questioned her gender for a little while. She seems to know a lot about airplanes.\u201d
\n\t\u201cShe says she\u2019s got a boyfriend that flys.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI wanted to look at this wisp of poetry, and I wanted to talk about the literary implications of blogging, and if I get to it, I want to talk about the implications of self-publishing for writers.\u201d
\n\t\u201cAs usual, I want one of you to read the poem out loud. Any takers?\u201d
\nA tall woman in a red sweater with sandy brown hair all straggling out of her pony ties rose and said,\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019d like to read it.\u201d
\n\t\u201cGo for it, Jenny.\u201d
\nShe walked towards the front of the group with her phone in front of her. Her voice was thin and quiet, but she read beautifully without faltering. Her delivery was perfectly ghostly and wistful. The way she read it, she changed the line structure so that it sounded something like this:
\n\t\u201c I am a bird among the cats.
\n\tA single swat and I am toast.
\n\tThat\u2019s that!
\n\tThat thin red line is mine, my life.
\n\tThe paw lashed out and was as knife.
\n\tI lived.
\n\tI died, unfed.
\n\tI ate.
\n\tI waited.
\n\tBled.
\n\tNature is cruel and most uncool.
\n\tShe tossed me out as dross, as fool.
\n\tLet me speak once more undead.
\n\tI ate.
\n\tI waited.
\n\tBled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside, the sound of the wind tossing around the leaves and trash rushed in to fill the dead air.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cComments?\u201d
\n\t\u201cOuch.\u201d
\n\t\u201cIt mixes up being funny with being serious. I mean, it\u2019s about death, isn\u2019t it?\u201d
\n\t\u201cThe bird, she dies.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s right, she dies.\u201d
\n\t\u201cBut she doesn\u2019t stop talking.\u201d
\n\t\u201cShe\u2019s a zombie bird.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhat about the language. Do find any odd words?\u201d
\n\t\u201cDross.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes dross is odd. Out of place. Is it being out of place a problem? Is it significant somehow?\u201d
\nThis question takes a moment for the class to work out. They have to think about it. The one good thing about Julian Gray\u2019s teaching, is that he doesn\u2019t jump on their time to do it. He\u2019s willing to be silent for a spell. Sure enough, a timid hand goes up.
\n\t\u201c\u2026it might have been \u2018gross\u2019 instead. After all, it is uncool, cruel, and it leads to bloodshed. Nature, I mean\u2026\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve looked up dross here. It means \u2018waste matter,\u2019 certainly, but also, in metallurgy a waste product taken off in smelting. It\u2019s reusable. Undead.\u201d
\n\t\u201cMy word! Julian said. That\u2019s significant. Thanks, James, for looking that up! The double meaning of words. Are there any more of these?\u201d
\nA hand goes up right in front.
\n\t\u201cJackie?\u201d
\n\t\u201c\u2026I don\u2019t know about double meanings, but I think toast is an interesting word choice. It sets up \u2018ate and fed.\u2019\u201d
\n\t\u201cLet\u2019s consider \u2018ate and fed.\u2019 What are these words doing in this poem.\u201d
\n\t\u201cTaking up space!\u201d
\nLaughter.
\n\t\u201cNo, no. Don\u2019t you see,\u201d said Angie with some excitement, \u201cthe whole thing is about predators and prey. They are either eating or being eaten.\u201d
\n\t\u201cSo let\u2019s really talk about what the poem is about. How shall we explicate this poem?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ll take a crack.\u201d
\n\t\u201cGo Ken, go.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThe poem describes the last moments in the life of a bird. The bird reflects on all that is important to it in that moment. It is aware of the wound that killed it. It is aware of the cruelty of nature. It is aware that it was foolish to be caught by a cat. Finally, it is aware that as a corpse, it will still be still signify predation.\u201d
\n\t\u201cFantastic! I couldn\u2019t have done it better myself!\u201d
\n\t\u201cThanks, prof.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou all have heard me go on and on about the musicality of language. I have mentioned very specific ways this can be done. In this poem, there are several types of rhymes. Can any of you name these and tell us where in the text they occur?\u201d
\n\t\u201cThere are perfect rhymes, such as \u2018cat, that, life, knife.\u201d
\n\t\u201cCool, cruel, fool.\u201d
\n\t\u201c\u2026and some slant . I detect a slant internal rhyme in \u2018swat\u2019 and \u2018cats.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
After some discussion of meter and other technicalities, a woman named Monica became agitated and put up a hand.
\n“Yes, Monica?”
\n“We’re missing an important fact about this poem.”
\n“That being?”
\n“It’s a metaphor.”
\n“It has metaphor, certainly…”
\n“No. I mean that the whole thing is a metaphor. She’s the bird among the cats. Amy is the bird. I’ve been reading this blog here, and she’s always calling herself that. Tweet, tweet. She’s the bird. She’s afraid.”
\n“My god! You’re right!” Julian bellowed. That is what haunts me about this writing. It trembles with vulnerability, a sense of doom.”
\n“Yep. I think she’s being stalked, maybe battered.”
\n“She doesn’t say that.”
\n“How could she.”
\n“Thank you so much for that insight, Monica. I knew you all would have much to say that is valuable.”<\/p>\n
The entire class was spent on dissecting the little bird poem. It never got to wider implications. That was typical Gray. He often fell short of the mark. It was his plan to return to it.In this he was thwarted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He could barely believe what he\u2019d seen on that blog, that \u201cAmy Tells All.\u201d It came to his attention via a search that led from one thing to the next like wildfire. Having arrived at it, he couldn\u2019t retrace his steps. There was no need. Never mind how he found it, he bookmarked it. His eyes first fell on the title \u201cOff Duty Professor,\u201d which seemed to be a pun on \u2018off duty policeman.\u2019 He emitted a snort. His eye raced down the page, and there was his own name. John. Who is this woman? Does she know me? He read the page again. And then he read the page again. The little wisp of a poem seemed like nothing at first, but when he tried saying it out loud, it had a rather telling, mordant effect. The fact that she framed it in an imagined dialogue with an older man gave her the opportunity to try to regard her poem as an outsider might. Her imagined interlocutor is given much license to regard her as a woman. It is not, as she presents it, an appropriate teacher student relationship. Or is the line about her being a \u201clovely woman…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapters","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}