Sonnet for my students

My students’ eyes are nothing like the sun,
it is as if they are not yet awake;
they yawn and shuffle in, but never run,
until it gets to time for morning break.
I have seen some of them arrive on time,
to smile at me and greet me at the door.
It is delightful when they stand in line
and tell me that my lesson’s not a bore!
I love to hear my students speak in pairs
sometimes in groups and often on their own.
I grant, I teach them just four times a week,
but help them sometimes when the rest have gone.
Some teachers think my pupils are too loud:
as long as they can speak they do me proud.

Kim M. Russell

Here’s a poem I wrote some years ago when I was still teaching. I thought I’d share it on dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar: Via Negativa, where Björn is our host this Thursday. He gave Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, read by Alan Rickman, as one of several examples of negation in poetry.

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