Dear Mr Lee

Dear Mr Lee

Dear Mr Lee (Mr Smart says

it's rude to call you Laurie, but that's

how I think of you, having lived with you

really all year), Dear Mr Lee

(Laurie) I just want you to know

I used to hate English, and Mr Smart

is roughly my least favourite person,

and as for Shakespeare (we're doing him too)

I think he's a national disaster, with all those jokes

that Mr Smart has to explain why they're jokes,

and even then no one thinks they're funny,

And T. Hughes and P. Larkin and that lot

in our anthology, not exactly a laugh a minute,

pretty gloomy really, so that's why

I wanted to say Dear Laurie (sorry) your book's

the one that made up for the others, if you

could see my copy you'd know it's lived

with me, stained with Coke and Kitkat

and when I had a cold, and I often

take you to bed with me to cheer me up

so Dear Laurie, I want to say sorry,

I didn't want to write a character-sketch

of your mother under headings, it seemed

wrong somehow when you'd made her so lovely,

and I didn't much like those questions

about social welfare in the rural community

and the seasons as perceived by an adolescent,

I didn't think you'd want your book

read that way, but bits of it I know by heart,

and I wish I had your uncles and your half-sisters

and lived in Slad, though Mr Smart says your view

of the class struggle is naïve, and the examiners

won't be impressed by me knowing so much by heart,

they'll be looking for terse and cogent answers

to their questions, but I'm not much good at terse and cogent,

I'd just like to be like you, not mind about being poor,

see everything bright and strange, the way you do,

and I've got the next one out of the Public Library,

about Spain, and I asked Mum about learning

to play the fiddle, but Mr Smart says Spain isn't

like that any more, it's all Timeshare villas

and Torremolinos, and how old were you

when you became a poet? (Mr Smart says for anyone

with my punctuation to consider poetry as a career

is enough to make the angels weep).

PS Dear Laurie, please don't feel guilty for

me failing the exam, it wasn't your fault,

it was mine, and Shakespeare's

and maybe Mr Smart's, I still love Cider

it hasn't made any difference.

-- U A Fanthorpe

I listened to a fantastic radio 4 programme about this poem yesterday. My students have been studying a UA Fanthorpe poem, ‘Case History: Alison (Head Injury)’ which is a wonderful depiction of brain damaged Alison reflecting on her past life and achievements. ‘Dear Mr. Lee’ really appealed to me, as many lines resonate with my role as a teacher, both in humorous and tragic ways. I recognise how tight exam constraints don’t allow me to study poetry in the way I wish with my students, and how the creative whole is compartmentalised and highlighted and annotated until all original meaning is lost. Begrudgingly, I’ll also admit I am fully familiar with awkwardly explaining Shakespeare’s highly sexualised puns to hormonally charged, and often bemused, fifteen year olds (happy 448^th birthday Will S). I love the idea of students being inspired by set texts, but more realistically feel that an enforced reading habit won’t result in a burning passion for the bard, or a new found appreciation for Steinbeck’s use of language to portray Lennie. I have been lucky enough, in my first year of teaching, to break away from Mr Smart and occasionally find a way to foster pure, rich, discussion that doesn’t stick to assessment objectives, but such glimpses and opportunities are rare and precious! Consequently, I want to challenge my own teaching methods so that I can allow literature to ‘live with students’ and to see things ‘bright and strange’.

My strategies:

• Set up a monthly sixth form (and Y11) reading group, aside from A-Level study that is driven by student interests and enthusiastic discussion (tea and cake will always help). There should be no homework, no set question and no preparation. Let the students choose the material!
• Indulge in my own love of literature. Continue to expand my horizons and get stuck in a book, and remember why I am passionate about my subject. Joining a reading group set up with a group of friends has helped me to challenge my own reading interests and is incredibly valuable in allowing me to choose new books and authors that I would previously have dismissed.
• Let the students recommend their favourites. Similarly to point two, I have read some books specifically recommended by students. I have loved the books they’ve picked, and they have loved discussing them with me, in equal parts smug and delighted that I have taken their advice.

Although Mr Smart inevitably exists, especially considering we are careering at a gazillion miles an hour towards the upcoming exams, I hope I can always remember what really counts and banish Mr Smart back in his box, to be replaced by the truly dazzling Little Miss Loveoflit as often as possible.