The Writing Class At Lampeter Poem by Jacqui Thewless

The Writing Class At Lampeter

Rating: 5.0


Pens are lifted
and there’s the click;
the shuffling of sheaves as we out-breathe
and then’s the intersection of an insistent bird’s trill;
voices outdoors
and a crow’s caw, and a thud.

Some one coughs.
A boy. It is
a Tenor Cough.
A girl coughs in a higher key.
The boy responds unconsciously with
a more emphatic, melodious, baritone cough
and now it seems
the conversation outside's growing louder.

I’m roused by the clicking, then, of someone’s shoes
on the floor of the hall
and the muted closure of this writing-room's door
as the teacher leaves.
Sweet, open, fluting of the bird-sound in the tree calls me
and I rise,
making my own quiet
discordant disturbance.


Walking round the square concrete block
outside this old Canterbury building,
I hear a sympathetic symphony of sounds,
conducted by the queen of mornings
- a clear sky, golden;
there are the tiniest of small
breeze-motions in the single tree’s umbrage;
the swing-door bangs shut, thrice, in succession, quickly, as it must;
a bi-plane drones;
footfall of perpendicular people, crossing the campus, sounds;
Hark! Now the chapel bell rings in the hour.

I return to
the class.

A man called Ken is busy with a hammer and a maniacal drill outside the door.
From time to time, he sings a few bass phrases of a song.
The devilish drill, though,
and the knocking of his hammer are persistent in
wrecking the day’s choice literary music.
In every long pause that he lets us have,
outdoor laughter and conversation salves unsettled nerves
restoring to the air a more
civilised, satisfactory
and genteel score.

Ken comes into the classroom, gently
asking, in a whisper,
Can I come in?
The hand-tool is more well-behaved
when driving into our small window frame.
Ken leaves.
The teacher enters
and the pens
- thank God –
go down.



October,2007. Revised July 2010.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Gone Away 04 March 2010

You paint such a vivid picture here, I remember well the pained silence in exam halls. The tenor cough made me laugh.

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Marieta Maglas 29 July 2009

nice poem, well penned with deep ideas.......10

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Marilyn Lott 05 July 2009

I was fascinated by your story as you took us through the writing class. You obviously studied every breath and sound of this space of time and shared it with us. We were there just as you were. A true example of a good writer. Great job, Jacqui! '10+! ' Warm Wishes, Marilyn

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Patrick McFarland 05 July 2009

I really enjoyed this Jacqui. I could almost here Ken's drill as I read. 10+

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