Greater Wrong of Right (part 1)

I am $30,000 in debt. When I run into people from high school this is what I tell them. When they ask, “What did ya spend thirty grand on?” I tell them 2 girls. The $30,000 wasn’t spent on women, or even a woman, it was spent on a relationship. Two years ago I was fired from Red Robin. The next two months were spent on credit and borrowed time.

I am sitting in class and I am $30,000 in debt. There is a poem projected on the wall and the professor is asking, “How does this particular piece make you feel?”

I feel pissed off that I’m paying a post-secondary institution to be asked a question that I can ask myself.

A nasally voice somewhere behind me says, “It makes me feel discombobulated by the indoctrination forced upon the narrator, as clearly illustrated through the use of repetition and onomatopoeias within the sixth stanza.”

I’m nauseated that 60 point Scrabble words are enough to qualify as “knowledge”. I look at the clock, still another eighteen minutes until class is over. Maybe after I’ll get a coffee and try to get some other class readings done.

“Yes, one can certainly feel that way considering the way the piece is structured. Anyone else care to share how they feel?”

Another faceless voice speaks up, “Well, from the enjambments, I feel like this is a very urgent work, like there is some sort of, um, importance. You know, like in the Beatles song!”

I feel dumber for having heard this comment. Viet Nam, second wave feminism, J.F.K. shot in Dallas, Ken Kesey and other day trippers driving cross America, all of these were of greater importance than Revolution becoming a hit.

I am $30,000 in debt sitting in a class listening to how a poem by some hack makes people feel. I suppose this is what happens when you were born in the early ‘80s.

“Good. Now what do you think was the author’s intention with this piece?”

“What does it matter, the author is dead to the work already.” I say.

“No, you are quite wrong in thinking that you see--”

“No, you are wrong, Michel Foucault lays it out quite clearly in his essay.” I say.

“True, Foucault did claim that, but--”

Someone probably much smarter than I am speaks up, “He has a good point, how would I know the author’s intention if they don’t layout in a clear and concise way to make it accessible for the reader? And more importantly, why wouldn’t we be looking at what the poem means, rather than how it makes us feel? After all wouldn’t the way that a piece of art makes someone feel be a matter of opinion and not a matter of truth?”

The professor looks worried, if only momentarily. I have a sudden realization that he owns an expensive piece of paper which implies he knows things about stuff. The truth is he probably knows just as much as anyone else in the class, the only difference is that he gets paid to be here. He then dismisses us, there is eleven minutes left. If he would have asked me how this makes me feel, I would have replied “Satisfied.”

A girl named Leslie comes up to me in the hallway and says “Thanks.”

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