[Glenn Wright]

Looks like a swing and a miss. I knew this poem would ruffle a few feathers. I rarely write poems about controversial social issues, but in this case, having spent 43 years as a teacher and administrator in public schools and a college, I unfortunately have had experience with this situation. In 1996 when I was a high school principal, we had a policy in my school district banning memorials at school for deceased students. This is a surprisingly controversial issue, as a quick dive into Google will show. Some mental health experts warn that such memorials —particularly of suicides—glorify the act and encourage copycats. Others feel that memorials can provide needed closure and enable students to support each other and move on. The research is inconclusive.

Thanks, Carl, WT, John, and Roger for your comments. I’ll address them not to try to convince you that my poem is really any good, but to answer your question, “What the hell was he thinking?”

Carl, I got rid of “joyless” and added the errant comma. All of you cringed at my theft of “self-slaughter” from Hamlet’s soliloquy so that line went into the stock pot. I replaced it with a cliché that might sound more believable on the lips of the woman who seems unlikely to have a PhD in English literature of the Renaissance.

John, I chose the rubaiyat form to establish a connection to Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which many readers have seen as a poem about a contemplated suicide. I also just really like the form.

Roger, the students are “trying” to affix the plaque of flowers to the wall because it is “massive” and unwieldy. Also, they know they are likely to get in trouble for the memorial, so they may be a bit conflicted. The principal adds the word “strictly” to suggest that he feels that the powers-that-be are stricter than he might be if it were up to him. He might have been tempted to mention the suicide as an additional reason why the display might be forbidden, but he tactfully omits this mention. The woman’s color suggests a racial component to the interaction that the principal will want to consider in any direct confrontation. Her height suggests someone who is unlikely to let herself be pushed around. Your distaste for “self-slaughter” is a fair point, which I hope I improved a bit. Where the principal and school “brought her” was to her grave. Fairly or not, the mother holds the principal’s incompetence and lack of compassion responsible for contributing to her daughter’s death.

I was mainly interested in studying the principal. He seems to want to do a good job, but is hog-tied by restrictive rules and policies. His promise to water the flowers, which have been woven into a plaque, is impossible and ridiculous. His mistaken assumption that the woman and students are going to be comforted by his concern for the flowers shows how incompetent he is in real human interactions. I meant it to be a parallel of his inability to provide any meaningful or useful education or security for the students in his charge. He seems much more interested in sports, school colors, rules and regulations—things that are easy to manage. Why doesn’t he try to offer the woman some sympathy or consolation? Is he callous or just cowardly, unwilling to risk getting called onto the carpet by his boss? At the end the woman tells the principal not to look at the flowers, but to look at the dead child.

Well, I don’t give up easily. I’ll try dinking around with it a bit more. Again, thanks for your time and suggestions. You are helping me to learn my limits.
Glenn