I was building up to a post on the strange novel I’ve just read: Kobo Abe’s The Woman in the Dunes. But having a heavy cold and even heavier sense of sorrow for myself, I thought I’d try something I’ve not done before: post a poem. I’ve done flash fiction before, but never a poem. This is from a notebook entry I’d dated 8 Oct. 2011. It’s called ‘I’d been teaching.’

I’d been teaching

grammar for five weeks

so I thought I’d change the scheme –

70 new words in Collins 11:

How and why they’re coined: portmanteaus, blends,

affixes, taboo terms. I thought

It was pretty interesting. Then,

sprawled across her desk, a goth, bored,

asked: Are we meant to be doing this?

And that was one of her pink days.

Makes a change from writing about other people’s books. I no longer teach grammar, so feel ready to share the experience in that piece.