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“I did then, but…”
“But now you’re not so sure. Do you know why?”
Barbara thinks it over and shakes her head. If it’s a test question, she guesses she just failed.
“Could it be because your original version contains words that continue the rhythm of the poem? Could it be this is the way swings and this is how clunks, like a dead key on a piano?”
“It’s just one word… well, two…”
“But in a poem every word counts, doesn’t it? And even in free verse, especially in free verse, the rhythm must always be there. The heartbeat. Your version is poetry. Emily’s is prosy. Did she offer to help you with your work, Barbara?”
“I guess, in a way. She said, I think this was it, that if I didn’t hear back from you, I might consider her as an interested party.”
“Yes. That’s Emily as I’ve come to know her. Emily all over. She’s managerial. She would begin by making suggestions, and eventually your poems would become her poems. At best collaborations. She’s all right at what she does now that she’s semi-retired, going through writing samples for the fiction workshop, but as a teacher, or a mentor, she’s like a driving instructor who always ends up taking the wheel from the student. She can’t help it.”
Barbara bites her lip, considering, and decides to risk taking it a little further. “You don’t like her?”
It’s the old poet’s turn to consider. Finally she says, “We’re collegial.”
That’s not an answer, Barbara thinks. Or maybe it is.
“When I was teaching poetry at Bell many years ago, we were next door neighbors in the English Department, and when she left her door open, I sometimes overheard her student conferences. She never raised her voice, but often there was a… a kind of browbeating going on. Most adults can stand up to that sort of thing, but students, especially those who are eager to please, are a different matter. Did you like her?”
“She seemed all right. Willing to talk to a kid who basically just barged in.” But Barbara is thinking of the tea, and how nasty it was.
“Ah. And did you meet her husband, the other half of their storied love match?”
“Briefly. He was washing his car. We didn’t really talk.”
“The man is crazy,” Olivia says. She doesn’t sound angry, and she doesn’t sound like she’s making a joke. It’s just a flat declaration, like the sky is cloudy today. “Don’t take my word for it; before he retired, he was known in Life Sciences as Rowdy Roddy the Mad Nutritionist. For a few years before he finally stepped down—although he may still have lab privileges, I don’t know about that—he had an eight-week seminar called Meat Is Life. Which always made me think of Renfield in Dracula. Have you read it? No? Renfield is the best character. He’s locked in a madhouse, eating flies and repeating ‘the blood is the life’ over and over.
“Fuck me, I’m rambling.”
Barbara’s mouth drops open.
“Don’t be shocked, Barbara. You can’t write well without a grasp of profanity and the ability to look at filth. To sometimes exalt filth. All I’m saying—not out of jealousy, not out of possessiveness—is you would do well to steer clear of the Professors Harris. Her, especially.” She eyes Barbara. “Now if you have me down for a jealous old woman slandering a former colleague, please say so.”
Barbara says, “All I know is her tea is horrible.”
Olivia smiles. “We’ll close the subject with that, shall we? Are those your poems in that folder?”
“Some of them. The shorter ones.”
“Read to me.”
“Are you sure?” Barbara is scared. Barbara is delighted.
“Of course I am.”
Barbara’s hands are shaking as she opens her folder, but Olivia doesn’t see; she has settled back in her chair and closed those fierce eyes. Barbara reads a poem called “Double Image.” She reads one called “The Eye of December.” She reads one called “Grass, Late Afternoon”:
“The storm is finished. The sun returns.
The wind says, When I blow
tell your million shadows
to say ‘Eternity, eternity.’
