SOULS IN SOLES

by Jen Schneider

Gun-control advocates hold a vigil outside of the National Rifle Association (NRA) headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

again / tiny souls in rubble

and rubber soles

and rainbow-hued cotton

laces. elastic tips tucked

and tied. two-loops.

classroom pride. hide

under desks, behind doors,

on carpet-covered floors.

time once a concept

to be taught, not measured.

again / time knocks

on the doors of a nation

of shame and guns

with no roses

and loopholes

on parades / again

            with no brakes

mindless modeling

of putty and clay

must stop / now

so tiny souls

in rubber soles

            may learn, laugh, live

again / to teach and tell time,

sculpt and script

            a future of roses

                        with no guns  /  what if

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

AND SOMEBODY LAY THIS BOOK DOWN

A found poem of lines selected from the transcript of the January meeting of the McMinn County, Tennessee School Board considering the removal of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Maus from their curriculum teaching about the Holocaust.

by Dick Westheimer

Cartoon by Andy Marlette, Pensacola News Journal, January 29, 2022

     “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.” 

― Hannah Arendt

You see the naked pictures. You see the razor.

You see the blade where the mom is cutting herself. 

You see her laying in a pool of her own blood.

Please, somebody lay this book down.

Sure, we do the Holocaust, but we have

processes and procedures in place here. 

We can tell the kids what happened, but we don’t need 

all the nakedness and all the other stuff.

Can I lay that in front of a child?

It ain’t happening. It is not happening.

It’s like when you’re watching TV 

and a cuss word or nude scene comes on

and you don’t look at it. You don’t look at it.

Again, reading this to myself, it was decent 

until the end. Until the end,

I really enjoyed it. I liked it. 

The end was stupid, though.

It shows people hanging, it shows them 

killing kids. It is not wise or healthy

Somebody lay this book down and say 

Look it was taught! Look it was taught! 

Say! Look! It was taught!

If I was trying to indoctrinate somebody’s kids, 

this is how I would do it. You put this stuff just so, 

this vulgarity, and the kids, they soak it in.

We don’t need the scene of the mice hanging from the tree.

We don’t need all the nakedness and all the other stuff.

We don’t need the curse words and foul language.

I never had a book with a naked picture in it! 

I never had a book with foul language!

So I vote to do away with the book.

I Vote To Do Away With The Book!

And somebody lay this book down, because

somebody will say look, it was taught in the classrooms. 

So, Madam Chairman. I’m going to bring this to a head. 

I started it so now I am going to bring it to a head. 

I move that we remove this book.

I move that we remove this book!

Dick Westheimer has—in the company of his wife Debbie—lived, gardened and raised five children on their plot of land in rural southwest Ohio. He is a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist. In addition, his recent poems have appeared or are upcoming in Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Rise Up Review, Sheila Na-Gig, Snapdragon Journal of Art and Healing, and Cutthroat.

THE CLASSROOM

by Gary Glauber

This undated photo shows special education teacher Jennifer Graves, at Dr. Reginald Mayo Early Childhood School, in New Haven, Conn. When her classroom aide didn't show up for work and no substitutes were available for the day because staffing levels have been decimated by the surge in COVID-19 infections, she borrowed paraprofessionals from other classrooms for short stretches to get through. (Courtesy Jennifer Graves via AP) —US News, January 6, 2022

We ask them to identify global issues

at a time when their own lives are the global issue,

when identity comes masked and at a remove

measured and circumscribed for safety

according to the latest recommendations.

 

This remains a social place, as it must,

where exchanged ideas ignite the fires

that fuel internal growth alongside 

the social and the physical, and we bear witness

daily to the awesome and real act of becoming.

 

Now we are in a prolonged fugue, a limbo

wherein they better grasp the repetitive hopes

of Vladimir and Estragon, awaiting further instruction.

As news brings forth each sobering tidal wave

of rising numbers, it grows harder to pretend.

 

Every week brings a new normal.

Haggard-looking administrators roam hallways

with official clipboards of doom,

asking four questions to trace

the trails of those not virally passed over.   

 

And all the while we take attendance,

having learned to smile with our eyes,

and dispense daily lessons that pale

against these larger life lessons

that challenge and instruct us all.

 

Here in our smart modern classrooms

we muster the safest havens we can manage,

sharing screens and hearts and minds,

knowing that with each period’s gathering

comes a strong dose of social healing.

 

All pandemics come to an end,

the wisdom of the ages suggests.

Yet until that ancient saw becomes reality,

there’s a remedy called the classroom

that brings the dream closer, uniting us in wisdom.

 

With this new world comes higher order questions 

that Bloom’s taxonomy never considered.

Through shared crisis come unmasked truths:

together we feel shared love that helps us through

what often seems these most trying of times.

Gary Glauber is a widely published poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. He champions the underdog while negotiating life’s absurdities. He has four collections, Small Consolations  (Aldrich Press), Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), Rocky Landscape with Vagrants (Cyberwit), and most recently, A Careful Contrition (Shanti Arts Publishing); and two chapbooks, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press) and The Covalence of Equanimity (SurVision Books), a winner of the 2019 James Tate International Poetry Prize. A new collection will be forthcoming soon from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions.

FIRE ALARM, MAY 18

by Jennifer Hernandez

The fire alarm sounds sixth hour
buzz-shriek pierces all senses
vibrates bones and deep tissue
unannounced

prep period almost over
pile of papers nearly graded
end-of-year vocab tests
never enough time

new batch of students in ten minutes
eighth graders
mentally checked out weeks ago
this sure won’t help

but better during prep
than with a room full of kids
pinballing off the walls
bursting through the doors

one breath of spring air
and they’ll be lost
frolicking in the grass
picking dandelions

No, better to be on prep
to walk out with teachers
who ask, Did you hear
there was another shooting?

not locked in our classrooms
lights off
voices silent
huddled in corners

I can’t help thinking
about the shooters
who pulled fire alarms
lured their targets outward

outside now
we move forward
scan the perimeter
for anything suspicious

anyone running
screaming
any prone bodies
pools of blood

Jennifer Hernandez lives in Minnesota where she teaches middle school and writes poetry, flash, and creative non-fiction. Much of her recent writing has been colored by her distress at the dangerous nonsense that appears in her daily news feed. She is marching with her pen. Her work appears in such publications as TheNewVerse.News, Rise Up Review, Tuck Magazine and Writers Resist. She is working on  a chapbook of hybrid writing on teaching as a political act.