He started handling my exam paper like it was a turd or something. "We studied the Egyptians from November 4th to December 2nd," he said. "You chose to write about them for the optional essay question. Would you care to hear what you had to say?"
"No, sir, not very much," I said.
Old Spencer is making Holden feel pretty lousy about himself at the beginning of
The Catcher in the Rye. Holden knows he's flunked Spencer's class, and now Spencer, in a misguided attempt to help his failing student, starts reading Holden's essay exam out loud, making Holden feel even worse.
Yesterday evening, I attended a poetry reading given by one of my good friends. Matt's new collection has just been released, and Matt was typically charming, funny, and brilliant last night. The room was packed, mostly because everyone knows he's charming, funny, and brilliant. By the end of the reading, I was feeling great for him and lousy about myself.
As Ricky Ricardo says, "Now, Lucy, if you just give me a chance to 'splain."
I left the library last night really excited. When I got home, I started going through my binder of stuff, trying to assemble a little packet of chapbookable poems. After about an hour, I came to the conclusion that, in comparison to what I'd heard Matt read earlier, my poems were, to paraphrase Holden, pieces of turd. I proceeded to descend into one of the foulest moods I've experienced in a long time.
That mood has extended into this morning. I am in a P.O.E.T.S. Day Funk. I'm afraid to start looking through my poems again. Afraid that I'll simply confirm last night's impression of my work. My plans for this evening aren't going to lift my spirits, either. My wife and I are having dinner with Matt, and then we're going to the university's MFA celebration. That means listening to MFA graduate students reading excerpts from their theses for a couple hours. I'm hoping some of the poets will suck so that I can feel a little better about myself.
Saint Marty ain't havin' a good day, folks.
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| This pretty much says it all |
