I went to take some English and History classes at the local Jr. College when I was in my forties. I had no desire to get a degree, I had no idea of changing my profession and getting a career. I was surprised to find out I would be required to take a class in career planning in order to attend school. I bitched about it to the dean I was assigned. I had no desire to pursue a career. That was the furthest you could get from my motivations. I wanted to read and write, just to do it. I had the time and had never before attended any kind of school except sales skills and management seminars and classes.

But it was required I attend Career Planning, so I did. It was kind of a fun class, taught by a pretty inventive teacher. We did some good activities and whenever there was a need to apply my situation to some part of the course, like listing things I would want to do, I would answer with skills and desires I’d already had. My teacher got me. I got an A because I participated.

One day our assignment was to write. One person would start writing a line of words, then the next person would write a line after, then to the next person and so on. We made up groups of four people and passed the project around our little circles. I started my group’s project with the line, “spinning like a Purple Propeller.” And it went on from there.

The next semester I took an English Creative Writing class and used the poem we had made of nonsensical lines including all the misused capital, mistakenly used lower case letters and bad grammar. I got an A and a sweet note on my paper about how inventive and insightful my poem was.

 

Purple Plastic Propeller
spinning like a Purple
plastic Propeller
my energy winds Me
like a Tornado
water splashes around like a great Storm.

And my toenail Scrapes
the Sand,
to be cleaned with tap Water
the dirt washed away like the Glow
of a license plate at Night.

I put the soap back in the soap Dish
And ran to adjust the Propeller

that Spun
Like
A
propeller
but felt like a lonely Kernel
among the popped Corn

hoping the dream catcher Would
Bring
an uplifting Dream,

he also hung Sage
from the Ceiling

hanging to his big Toenail

was a sliver Of
Redwood.