Art Is Subjective, But Uh…

When I was in my sophomore year of high school, I took a Creative Writing class. I love writing stories, and I thought it would help me with writing different genres. It turns out it was only poetry. I was disappointed, but I still did what I was told.

After we had written several poems, we had this thing at school called the Poetry Jam. We were told to pick what we thought was our best poem and submit it. Less than a week later, my poem was returned to me with a note from the teacher in charge of the Poetry Jam.

That evening, I returned home and told my mom that I’d gotten my poem back with a note. I handed it to her and she read this note — from the TEACHER — out loud.

Note: “This is horrible. Never write poetry again.”

My mom was livid. It might not have been the best poem out there, but there is such a thing as constructive criticism versus being just an a**.

The next year, I had the same teacher for my Language Arts class. Before I even got to school, my mother was ready to get me out of that class.

Me: “It’s okay, Mom. If he’s as bad as that note he wrote, then I’ll switch. I just don’t want to go through the hassle of it right now.”

Mom: “All right. But if he says or does anything, you let me know right away!”

Me: “I will.”

I started school and had a horrible cold, so I was on a lot of cold medicine and was fighting the urge to stay awake in class. The very first assignment he gave us? Poetry. We were given a painting and told to write a poem about it. I didn’t really want to, given the note from before, and I was kind of out of it, so I just scribbled something down that didn’t even make sense.

He thought it was one of the best poems he had ever read and gave me full credit, plus extra credit for it. I just sat there, staring at this “poem”.

Me: “…Maybe he just doesn’t know good poetry?”