Spring semester is a semester of contrasts.

I teach a “bad class” and a “good class.” In bad class, students stroll in fifteen minutes late with veiny red eyes, reeking of cheap pot. In good class, a student who lives on a collective farm, who also writes excellent imitations of Tony Hoagland poems, comes in reeking of manure. In bad class, a student plagiarizes an entire essay on Banana Yoshimoto directly from Wikipedia.

In good class, we spend an hour discussing the concept of “sins against the imagination,” their relation to the comic book version Kafka’s Metamorphosis. In bad class, a student comes in twenty minutes late, and when he won’t leave, I call the college police, who insist on escorting me across campus to good class when the whole thing is over. Good class thinks the incident is funny. I have trouble sleeping.

In bad class, I am told “I paid for this. Why do I have to do so much work?” In good class, a student turns in a twenty-five page imitation of Hunter S. Thompson on a five page assignment. I give her, and you can check my gradebook, 750/75 on it. In bad class, a twenty-year-old student tells me she had trouble putting her four-year-old to sleep last night because he stayed up to watch Saw III. In good class, a student overcomes her anxiety by writing a heart-breaking essay about depression. In bad class, a student wants to write a ten-page essay about the first time he got high.

In good class, we play a version of Balderdash. They split into pairs and try to invent the cleverest definition from a list of words they do not know:

A Corps Perdu, n. an army of chickens. The French Army.

Badaud, n. the alternative title to Shaquile O’Neil’s Shazaam. A medieval weapon like any other weapon save when you strike someone with it you yell “Badaud!”

Cachinnation, n. an ultra-hip brand of men’s lingerie: “Are name is long and so are you.” When you sell an Asian person.

Dapifer, n. “Honey, the baby’s diaper’s full agin.”

Echolalia, n. the gay man’s branch of the armed services.

I laugh so hard at their definition of Cachinnation, which actually means to laugh loudly or immoderately, I fart.   laugh harder.

Good class imitates Bukowski’s “Thank God for Alleys,” a poem about getting in a fight in an alley, astronauts, and long forgotten peace. They love it. They imitate William Carlos Williams. One of them says, not entirely inaccurately, “He doesn’t like words.”  We read one poem aloud per day. During a Modest Proposal exercise, a group proposes to send all the overweight people in America to an island until they get skinny. Their argument is convincing.

Because adjuncts are paid so little, I find another job teaching at night and online. My days start at seven, pause for a twenty-minute meal, a fifteen minute nap, then I’m on the computer until ten. My claim to fame is I write essays for Port Folio Weekly.  My best friend has four jobs at two different colleges; she waits tables too, but doesn’t save any money. I fall in love with her, but you’ve heard that story before.

I sign e-mails Monsignor Lucifer because of the heavy load of reading and writing I assign. My students laugh. I get to know them, mainly through their writings. They are bright, funny, talented, and not-so-good with the grammars.

I teach against the mistakes of so many who taught me. If a class goes by that is boring, I am depressed. I search the Internet, all my old journals, and my boxes of books buried in my parent’s garage for some new activity that will get students excited about literature and writing. I walk by classrooms and hear colleagues droning—memories of my freshman year of college, a PhD candidate taking the life out of Hamlet with Deconstructionism. I have my students write stories using their favorite curse word, lyrics to a Beatle’s song, and a group of lazy ninjas. Their creativity is astounding.

Christ you know it ain't easy.

I teach with the best I have had. Richard Jones, my poetry professor in grad school, who poked and prodded and embarrassed me in front of the class, forcing me to “get the line right.  Get the line right!” John Rapson, my jazz professor in college, who pushed me to stop thinking and start listening. Larry Heinemann, a hero of mine, who taught me that being a writer was no different than being alive, you simply had to have honor and grace. Mr. Straight, my high school biology teacher, who bent over and whispered in my ear, “I know you’re a hell of a lot smarter than the rest of these dingbats, but if you don’t start acting like it, I’m going to kick your butt.”

One hot day towards the end of the semester, bad class is writing on the topic of “Italy, should we put it in a bubble?” It is quiet and peaceful, a sharp contrast to the chaotic “thirteenth grade lunch room” the class used to be. I chuckle, and they all look up.  My shirt is still from JC Penny, but I am no longer sweating and my head is clear. In the middle of another chuckle, I say, “I won.” One of my brightest, a talented young man, who has been reading W.E.B. Dubois, says, “Yeah, Mr. K., you have.”

“Did you get that Hendrix CD?” I ask him.

“Axis? Yeah, and you were right, when he gets to the end of that last track, you realize the whole thing is just a build to that solo.  Thanks, man.” He looks back down at his book. The class returns to their exercise, but I interrupt them again.

“You know what, enough of this boring English crap. Why don’t you guys go home. Send some text messages or something.”

They shuffle by my desk, and when they are gone, I sit in the empty classroom. Lately I have been sleeping again, and after a few minutes I realize I no longer have a “bad class.” Several of the problem students have dropped, but a few remain, willing to listen if dismissively, along with a dozen or so who should have been in “good class” all along. After many pointless meetings with the school administration, I ended up killing them with kindness. Enthusiasm goes a long way.  It is hard to fathom that less than a year ago I was steaming lattes. I grab my books and folders and notebooks, hit the lights and close the door.