Then we get up to my poem. I read it, most people liked it, and there was the usual grammar and meaning comments and such. Then the teacher said "But here, where you've used the word 'soul'...do you know what you mean?" I thought that was a silly question. "Yes, but do you?" was my answer. The class thought that was funny and for the second time in my life people laughed at a joke I made, rather than a mistake.

The teacher proceeded to go on a long preformatted and dull talk about using the word soul in a poem. I thought it was a good word, and I don't really think restrictions should be put on what words people use to express their thoughts. I mean it is creative writing, isn't it? But this teacher, using her best judgment, told a classroom full of 18 to 21 year old students "People shouldn't use the word soul in poetry until they're at least 40 and they know what it means." She then clarified that she meant people shouldn't write about a soul until they had one.

They roasted her. Open flame, spit, the works.

One of the more verbose people in the class was reduced to calling her arrogant. Everyone seemed to take some level of offense to it. Except, of course, the one older married person in the class. He proceeded to give us an example involving our children and other stuff we can relate to.

I sat there quietly, wondering how a simple poem that I had written when I was a little depressed, about getting to know myself a little better, had started the English Wars. It was very interesting. I thought the teacher was going to cry. She's just a grad student, I don't think she meant anything by it. She was just regurgitating what her teachers had told her.

It's a little sad when you get to the point where teachers really don't seem that smart anymore.