A Hole in Juan Read Online Free PDF

as a desirable activity.
    The poets, working hard to overcome shyness and terror, agreed, and today was the day. I was delighted. As incomprehensible as it seemed to me, polls had shown a majority of the U.S.
    populace would choose death rather than speak in public. This event was stealth public speaking and the innocent bards had suggested it themselves.
    All went well from start to finish. Alison Brody had a brief attack of stage fright when the camera was brought into the classroom, but she got over it and was able to deliver her surprisingly touching sonnet about her grandmother’s death. I was proud and, I admit, astonished at how she’d empathized with the woman, basing each stanza on a name the woman had been called, from baby nicknames to “darling” to Mrs. Brody, Mama, and Grandma. Alison had been able to see her as a woman with a history of her own, and that was no mean feat.
    And Joey Myers, despite self-consciousness that dyed his cheeks vermilion, was brave and resolute enough to read his verses about his dog, a sweet but intellectually challenged pooch.
    His nose reddened as he related the dog’s death, and he spoke his final line in a thickened voice:
    The good thing was
    We never let him know that
    GILLIAN ROBERTS
    28
    Dogs should be smart.
    He died feeling clever and wise.
    Having said his piece, eyes on the floor, Joey cleared his throat then looked up and around, and glared, daring anybody to question his manliness just because he’d loved his dumb doggie.
    Nobody did.
    Lily’s poem “Supposing” was overly reminiscent of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and of course it was about peace and loving one another. (“Supposing there’s no labels, and only human beings, no boundaries between them . . .”) And even though it so closely followed the rhythms of the original that you could hum its melody as she read, she called it an “homage”—and who were we to disagree?
    Along the same blameless lines, Cheryl Stevens had perhaps absorbed too much Dylan—or perhaps it was Sassoon’s poem,
    “Does It Matter?” that began, “Does it matter?—losing your legs?
    For people will always be kind . . .” But the passionate emotions of her poem, “Does It Count?” were personal. Her adored older cousin had returned from Iraq blind and it was clear that she, too, had been scarred by what she saw as the meaninglessness of his loss.
    The news tallies casualties and we
    Check the numbers dead and sigh.
    A wound makes you an also-ran.
    You don’t count.
    They should describe each injury,
    Say what the still-breathing have left,
    What part is broken, gone or bleeding, how much, how long the pain.
    Make people understand that
    Being twenty-one and blind forever counts.
    The next stanza began, “They teach us not to kill . . . unless they change their minds,” and went on to the contradictions of war and a metaphorical blindness.
    29
    A HOLE IN JUAN
    Cheryl had something special. I was sure that if she kept at it, borrowing and adapting or not, she would hack through all the other voices and find her own, and when she did, it would be well worth hearing.
    The reading went smoothly without a noticeable hitch, and classmates who’d already heard these works were attentive and supportive, applauding each poet with convincing enthusiasm.
    We ended the hour on a high, having done something innovative and brave—and we were talking about Philly Prep, not your most intellectually stimulating or academically involved school.
    Take that, Juan Reyes!
    It had been a great morning. “I’m so proud of all of you,” I said.
    And I was, but a proud English teacher should remember where, chronologically, pride goeth.
    The tenth graders had enjoyed A Separate Peace, though not as wildly as I’d hoped. At first, they complained about the fictional-ized prep school’s playing fields, the lunches served, and the exquisite-sounding surrounds versus the urban realities of Philly Prep. Their prep school had concrete