What He Meant

I read a poem once to my class And it was one I’d written. I’d hoped my students by the writing bug Would thus be bitten. A sixth-grade pupil came to me And asked me, most sincerely, Which book I’d copied from; I thought I hadn’t heard him clearly. “I wrote the poem,” I did reply. “The words came from my brain.” It was a fact that he just couldn’t Really entertain. He thought a writer had to be Like some exotic creature, Most certainly no one he’d know And surely not his teacher! Last night I heard a famous writer* Read from his new book. I listened, rapt, and just a page Or two was all it took To bring me back to teaching days, But how the table’s turned! I wondered how that writer knew The things that he had learned. I thought of what I’d told that kid And now, to some extent, I understand, some years too late, Exactly what he meant. *T.C. Boyle