Jimmy Leonard – author & educator

The English Teacher's Nightmare: A Poem

Jimmy Leonard  | May 15, 2021
The original version of this post was published on March 23, 2018. This post may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.

A book on fire

A Healing Rite When People Don’t Write Right

I grade essays every week, and sometimes the hours of editing stifle my creativity. Here’s a recent exercise I did to bring some of it back. Plus two many typos make me pole my hare out, and I’ve gotta vent somehow.

The high-strung grammarian’s his own class of neurotic;
The affect of such condition lands frankly despotic.
See while some readers forgive that small A so disgraceful,
I’ve recoiled and retched in a manner distasteful.

Oh yes, it slashes me open; I bleed red like a pen
And make punctilious edits with a sigh and amen.
Until a paragraph down when I am offered advise
To relax, smell the flours, and watch the plural butterfly’s.

Perhaps I’ll ignore principle rules or laying in bed
Or the sly whom sneaking off to put a who in its stead.
Yet though I mean not to embellish, I fear nobody sees
What sick, soul-crushing effect that affect has on me.

They say what’s the big deal if y’all know what I mean
Grammers dead, said Nietzsche
and tihs proevs so is splelnig

No1 reads books when tweets R bestselling

Alright then, said me—
if u cant beat em
then join em
2 can play this fowl game

What now? Think puns mark my only recourse?
Iambic pentameter, just missed.

That part in Scarlet Letter
when Elizabeth
and Mr. Darcy
finally share a kiss.

Would that every comma splice, could be so clever
Or it’s maker so certain he placed it on porpoise
riding waves, self-ensured, in this daring endeavor
of creation.

Dreams sustain me.

Look at this haiku!
I am such a daredevil
To end it here.

 

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Jimmy Leonard

Jimmy Leonard

Jimmy Leonard helps brands tell stories and reach new audiences. He enjoys running and hiking in the mountains.

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