[Critique Group 2] 58-line poem for February 24 critique session

[Alice Massa]

Hello, Group 2 writers--Today, I heard the one word "prison" ; and the 
following subject and poem developed throughout this day and evening.  
Due to my using italicized print for the title and subtitle of the play, 
I am also attaching the document of the poem only.


Hoping also to hear your voices at our conference call on Sunday 
evening--Alice


* * *


*The Class that Loved /The Importance of Being Earnest/*

**

poem by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

In the latter 1960s, when my sister was already in college

and I was still in Clinton High School,

the forever younger sister was permitted to go along with

the older to the ISU Summer Theatre production of

/The Importance of Being Earnest/--

in the round--well, more precisely, theatre-in-the-oval.

A local television weatherman Bud Borchert

played the part of Algernon Moncrief

with the wit and warmth that the playwright Oscar Wilde intended.

The actors’ entering onto the stage from various stairways through the 
audience

was a new and exciting experience for me.

Sitting there on the reddish-orange, cushioned, but straight-back chair,

I never dreamed that someday, about three decades later,

I would be teaching /The Importance of Being Earnest/ and Oscar Wilde

to my varied classes of college students.

I never imagined that one day in my teaching career,

I would have a most enjoyable class

from the hardened inner city--

a class who most relished deeply and thoroughly

the three-act satire of Victorian social hypocrisy.

Through the weeks of the 90-minute class,

I came to appreciate these students more and more

as they demonstrated an almost unbelievable fascination for the farce

first performed on Valentine’s Day of 1895.

Did they enjoy the comedy

because it was so removed from their own challenging lives?

I was never sure.

As the semester proceeded, in discussion,

the students wanted me to learn that each of them knew someone--

like Oscar Wilde--

who had been or was in prison.

They could not believe that I knew no one who had been in prison.

Periodically, the question arose again;

much to their disbelief, I assured them that I knew no one who had been 
in prison.

I thought of the subtitle:

/A Trivial Pursuit for Serious People./

One day, during break,

one of the toughest female students joined my guide dog Heather and me

as we were walking back toward the classroom;

She, without a tear, told me about her brother

who had been murdered several months earlier.

/The Importance of Being/ ….

One day, after those students had left my life,

I recalled a cousin of my parents’ generation.

He, his wife, and his sister-in-law

rarely visited our Blanford home;

but when they did, all were dressed like a million dollars.

I was briefly fascinated by these cousins

who were seemingly so out-of-place in our rural community.

Then, I remembered:

that cousin, in Florida, had been in the Mafia

and had served time in prison.

If only I had recalled this cousin story

when I was teaching

/The Importance of Being Earnest/

to the class that loved the play the most:

those students could have known that I, indeed, was one of them.

* * *

Number of poetic lines:58

Number of words:463

February 17, 2022, Thursday

For Critique Group 2 session on February 24, 2022, Thursday


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