Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard Read Free Book Online Page B

going to have to wow us to get us to like anything at all about Emily.
    “So much of Dickinson,” she tells us, “is about what is left unsaid and what is left unclear. What we aren’t able to articulate, what we aren’t able to find the words for—that’s what underscores these poems and what, as Dickinson so aptly perceived, lies beneath all of our experiences.”
    Uh-huh. We nod.
    “Because Dickinson’s poems were written in the form of hymns,” Miss Dovecott explains, mapping out iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter on the blackboard, “we can singthem, and as we sing them, we can hear where the rhythm slips, where Dickinson disregards, maybe even snubs, that sacred form.” So many eyes glazed over; Glenn Everson, dutifully taking notes or plotting a murder—it’s hard to tell. “What else might she be snubbing?”
    No one answers, no one is going to answer. She repeats the question. No hands go up. So Miss Dovecott starts singing poem #389—“There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House”—to the tune of the
Gilligan’s Island
theme song.
    By the time she reaches the fourth stanza, we are laughing.
    The Minister—goes stiffly in—
    As if the House were His—
    And He owned all the Mourners—now—
    And little Boys—besides—
    We are laughing at the minister’s stiff entry; we are laughing at Miss Dovecott because she can’t sing. Suddenly our teacher seems like the weird girl in junior high who wore granny dresses.
    At the board, she points to what is written there. “So iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter is a common form in all types of songs.” She puts her hands on the back of her chair. “Now. Even though the death happened in the ‘opposite house,’ it still affects the speaker. How?”
    Andy Hedron raises his hand. “She sees the aftermath of it.”
    “Right, Andy, but why do you think the speaker is female?”
    Auggie jumps in. “Because Emily is a woman. Although she kinda looks like a man.”
    We laugh, but Miss Dovecott ignores us. “Can you find any evidence in the poem itself that the speaker is female?” The room is so silent that I can hear the fluorescent lights overhead. A couple of guys are gazing out the window. “Okay. Everybody. Look at the poem. It’s there. See if you can find it.”
    “What are we looking for again?” asks Jovan Davis.
    “Is it in the third paragraph?” asks Malcolm Marshall.
    “Third
stanza
, Malcolm.”
    I look at the third stanza, singing it to the
Gilligan’s Island
theme in my head:
    Somebody flings a Mattress out—
    The Children hurry by—
    They wonder if it died—on that—
    I used to—when a Boy—
    I don’t get it, so I study my corduroy knees.
    “What is that last line saying there? Can you put it in your own words?”
    Colin Bates (nickname: Master) raises his hand. “ ‘I used to when
I was
a boy’?”
    “Good. Used to what?”
    “Used to imagine that the mattresses thrown out of windows were deathbeds,” Glenn says. I jerk my head to look at him. He is giving her his cool eyes.
    “Well done, Glenn,” she says.
    “I don’t think the speaker is a boy,” says Malcolm. “I think he’s a man. Because of ‘used to,’ like he no longer is a boy.”
    “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
    “I was wondering about this,” Auggie says. “I think the Minister is God. The way she capitalizes
His.
”
    “The house is the church,” says Master.
    “The house can’t be a church,” says Jovan. “The house is a house, man.”
    Suddenly I get it, I get it. I raise my hand. She calls on me. “In the boy’s eyes, the minister is like God. When he was a boy, not a man. So it’s like when the minister enters the house, the house becomes a church, you know, God’s house.”
    “Good, Alex,” Miss Dovecott says, clapping. “Very good. Keep going. So what, according to this poem, does this minister-God own?”
    “All the mourners,” I say. “And little boys. Dickinson is saying he owns all of