(I’ve put a link to the original poem and the email version I discuss in the analysis. Please read them before)
In Taylor Mali’s popular poem, “What Teachers Make, or Objection Overruled, or If things don’t work out, you can always go back to law school,” he stands up for teachers in a lively, no-nonsense sort of way. It’s humorous, original, meaningful. No wonder a copy was made. Too bad it’s ridiculous. The version injected into cyberspace, boringly labeled “What Teachers Make,” completely manhandles the original, mauling the casual humor and wry wit Mali was so good at. The copy—really, a mess of a revision—is sentimental and dull, lacking the vivacious spirit that made the original so powerful. The anonymous author tried to dumb it down for the masses, but, in the decimating act, they took the very soul away. Now we’re forced to examine the two, desperately trying to wipe the nonsensical copy from everyone’s memory and instead give the original its due worth in praise.
Taylor Mali’s long-titled piece stays true to itself, beginning to end, keeping us entertained as well as informed. His banter reigns, his sarcasm drips. Even the title serves as a wise-crack to all who doubt a teacher’s power. The first-person point of view makes it real and believable. We’re sitting at the dinner table getting the rant of the century from a rattled teacher. “You want to know what I make?” he asks, preparing us for his “honesty and ass-kicking.” Then he dives right in, heartlessly. Mali refrains from quotations, allowing his words to jumble together without the interruption of quote-end-quote. Instead, the words and phrases twist together, leaving the reader to untangle who exactly he’s talking to. His detail isn’t in imagery but in honesty. When he describes what she “makes,” we understand. Because we’ve been there. We’ve had the teacher who knows just why we want to get a drink of water—“You’re not thirsty, you’re bored.”—or who can make us feel like horrible human beings—“How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.” We get it. We see it. Mali brings life to generic memories and we take them, making them personal. The detail is only intricate because we can remember what teachers have made of us. It’s not at all sentimental, only honest. More dry than emotional; sarcastic more than sappy. The humor of the piece is not in jokes but in his “let you have it” policy. “You want to know what I make?” he asks again, without sounding like a broken record. It emphasizes just how much he does make. It rubs it in “his” face that he is on a roll and knows exactly what he is worth. Mali doesn’t back down, but rather gears up. His poetry isn’t about rhyme schemes or pretty stories. The breaks and rhythm only help move the piece forward, riddled with meaning and purpose. Not a stop, drop or pause is in place that wasn’t planned. It flows because of the sudden breaks and jumpy rhythm. It is, after all, “definitely/beautiful.” In the end, we understand why Mali was so involved. The “what about you?” at the end is for us. More a challenge than an accusation. We understand exactly what it is he teaches and pick up the lesson for ourselves: “If you got [brains] then you follow [your heart] and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you give them [the finger].” Simple as that.
The cliché-ridden copy falls flat in comparison. It’s in a whole other league. And not in a good way. Where Mali’s had heart, this version is inane; where Mali’s relied on character, this nonsense desperately clings to sentimentality. This is “family friendly” to the extreme, cutting the curse words and Mali’s no-nonsense approach to teaching, therefore destroying the character we had in the original. The revision shoves ideals, hopes, and dreams down our throats, begging us to choke on our tears and cheer for this selfless teacher named Bonnie. Who is Bonnie? Good question. She comes off timid and unsure. “You want to know what I make?” she stutters, saying it again and again as if she’s trying to figure it out herself, pausing and blushing, racking her brain for something important to say to the ever-imposing “CEO” that just happens to be “discussing life” with the dinner guests. It’s only after droning on and on about random, unconnected nonsense that Bonnie remembers something she must have read in When In Doubt, Say You’re Making a Difference: The Golden Feel-Good Answer For Anyone. “I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.” She cries out, finally finished. It seems even the anonymous author knew how silly it sounded, so they capitalized the entire phrase. More impressive that way. No, Bonnie is just one, hypocritical mess. She’s introduced as having a “reputation for honesty and frankness” but seems frightened to live up to it. Never does one phrase seem powerful or heartfelt. It’s forced and unimportant; nothing more than a list. When the author took the first-person away, relying instead upon third-person point of view, we lost the reality of the character. Bonnie is just a teacher at dinner protesting her own importance all while struggling with her own self-esteem. In the end she begins to whine, obviously threatened and frightened by her own measly existence: “When people try to judge me…I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant.” You tell ‘em, Bonnie! The entire piece is as much a mess as the struggling main character. Half the poem is prose and the whole thing is devoid of any rhythm or structure. It’s almost as if halfway through the author decided it needed to look more like a poem and so threw in some random breaks and pauses, still littering every line with meaningless filler and frilly feelings. The whole poem is a mouthful with little detail or imagery to make up for it. And Mali, it seems, wasn’t patriotic enough to be a teacher, because this version injects their sentimental bit about cultural diversity and the Pledge of Allegiance “because we live in the United States of America.” Thanks for the reminder. The author managed to keep a few of the “I make” statements from the original. But it does little-to-no good because it has lost its context and power of the character. Now it’s just words. Mali’s original poem is desecrated in this rendition, diluted to nothing more than a vague, shattered shadow. It lost it’s magic when it lost Mali. There’s no character; no driver. It’s just a simple, skeletal, empty, worthless mess.
The two poems are so very different, it does Mali’s poem injustice to hold them together. Where one is an honest confession, the other is a droning storybook. While one has heart because of character, the other beats the heart into it. Mali’s is real poetry, but most of the world doesn’t care, happy instead with the sappy rendition your best friend’s hairdresser’s mailman’s dog sent you in a forward. Click. One massacred, almost-plagiaristic poem coming right up. In the words of Mali, there’s a huge “goddamn difference” between the two, and if I get the revised version in an email, I may have to do some serious “ass-kicking” because it’s such an eyesore to the poetic community.
