Middle School - Mary Ruefle

Middle School 

I went to Cesar Pavese Middle School.
The gymnasium was a chapel dedicated to loneliness
and no one played games.
There was a stained-glass window over the principal's desk
and innumerable birds flew against it
reciting Shelley with all their might,
but it was bulletproof, and besides,
our leaders were never immortal.
The classrooms were modeled after motel rooms,
replete with stains, and in remedial cases
saucers of milk on the floor for innumerable cats,
or kittens, depending on the time of year.
In them we were expected to examine ourselves and pass.
The principal himself once jumped off the roof
at noon, to show us school spirit.
Our mascot was Twist-Tie man.
Our team the Bitter Herbs.
Our club the Reconsiderers.
It was an honor to have gone,
though a tad strict in retrospect.
You have probably heard that we all became janitors,
sitting in basements next to boilers
reading cheap paperback books of Italian poetry,
and never sweep a thing.
Yet the world runs fine.

-Mary Ruefle (Trances of the Blast)

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In this poem, Ruefle describes her experiences at middle school...a very twisted middle school in which the principal jumps off the roof in a display of "school spirit" and where no one plays games in the gymnasium. Although this poem certainly has some dark portions in it (such as the somber ending or the principal leaping from the roof), it's crammed full of humorous lines and notions. After all, at Cesare Pavese, the club which Ruefle was proud to be part of were the "Reconsiderers," the school mascot is "Twist-Tie Man," and the classrooms resemble dilapidated motel rooms overrun with cats. While I'm sure Ruefle is in her own way addressing her middle school experience, the absurdity and cynicism transform the poem into a hilarious, surreal, and somehow downtrodden recollection of the past.