Tag Archives: high school

Susan McLean, ‘The Only Feminist in High School’

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Two roads diverged in high school when a student
chose to study women’s liberation
to write her senior paper. Though imprudent,
that choice provided her an education

in bias, inequality, derision,
The Second Sex, The Feminine Mystique,
historical erasure, long division,
and talent gagged and shackled by physique.

She swore off make-up, wanted a career
but maybe not a family. She read
Kate Millett, Gloria Steinem, Germaine Greer,
and gave a speech on beauty, which, she said,

turned women into objects and betrayed
their goals. She didn’t want to be a mom
or movie star. When she went out, she paid.
Though never asked, she boycotted the prom.

The boys were baffled and the girls disdainful,
for who would want to talk to, much less date her?
And what she lost was obvious and painful,
while what she gained was only clear years later.

*****

Susan McLean writes: “This poem starts with the opening phrase from Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken‘ and it records a turning point in my own life of the sort that his poem describes. Though I hope that feminists are not such a rarity among high school students anymore, the term “feminist” is still so loaded that I tend to think of it as “the new F-word.” At one level, it still mystifies me that looking for equal opportunity and equitable treatment remains so controversial, but at another level, every society has been built on unequal opportunity and inequitable treatment since recorded history began, so it is not surprising that each step away from that system has made some people feel that the world was ending.

“I learned long ago that what a poem doesn’t say is as important as what it does say, so the ending of this one does not specify what was lost or what was gained. I want the readers to think about those things, so I don’t want to tell them what to think. As for why I wrote this in the third person, these events happened so long ago that it almost feels as though they happened to someone else. I am and am not that girl.

“The poem first appeared in my second poetry book, The Whetstone Misses the Knife.”

Susan McLean has two books of poetry, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
https://www.pw.org/content/susan_mclean

Photo: “Two Road Diverged…” by wackybadger is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Sonnet: Gail White, ‘Why I Failed to Attend My High School Reunion’

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Because it would have gone like this: Hello,
hello, hello. (You never like me, did you?
Where was this friendship 15 years ago?)
You’re looking wonderful. I wouldn’t kid you
about it – you look great. (You hefty cat.)
And Jeffrey – are you married? Oh, you are!
Three kids? However did you manage that?
(For God’s sake, someone point me to the bar.)
Me? I’ve just spent the summer in Tibet
learning some basics from a Buddhist nun.
It’s an experience I won’t forget.
(As if you cared.) More crab dip, anyone?
(And here’s the Great Class Bore. You’re still the same.)
Forgive me. I can’t quite recall your name.

*****

Gail White writes: ” ‘Why I Failed to Attend My High School Reunion’ is humor based on truth. I’m now 78 and have never been to a class reunion. Nobody who likes me would be there. I didn’t make real friends until I went to college and started meeting people who read books.”

Gail White is the resident poet and cat lady of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Her books ASPERITY STREET and CATECHISM are available on Amazon. She is a contributing editor to Light Poetry Magazine. “Tourist in India” won the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award for 2013. Her poems have appeared in the Potcake Chapbooks ‘Tourists and Cannibals’, ‘Rogues and Roses’, ‘Families and Other Fiascoes’, ‘Strip Down’ and ‘Lost Love’. ‘Why I Failed to Attend My High School Reunion’ was first published in Light Poetry Magazine and is collected in her chapbook, ‘Sonnets in a Hostile World‘, also available on Amazon.

Photo: “High School 5 Year Reunion” by Oliver Mayor is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Susan McLean, ‘High School Pride’

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Sleek in their strength and beauty, haughty, lithe,
prowling alone or stalking in a pack,
they cut down herds of victims like a scythe,
then search for fresh meat, never looking back.
The world is theirs, and all the grazers in it.
They cull the weak, the callow, the unwary.
The pack itself can change at any minute,
for all alliances are temporary.

How fine to be the hunters, not the prey,
to ambush, wound, or take down all they see!
While we, their hapless quarry, would contrive
to be as cruel and merciless as they
if we could share in their ascendancy—
not noticing how few of them survive.

*****

Susan McLean writes: “High school can be as harsh as any nature documentary in demonstrating Darwinian survival of the fittest. It is a time when popularity and fitting in can seem all-important, and when those at the top of the social hierarchy often take pleasure in harassing or snubbing those below. Two scientific studies gave the impetus for this poem. One was a study of apex predators such as lions, which showed that despite their power and ferocity, they had a surprisingly high mortality rate. The other was a study of people who were unpopular in high school, which found that later in life they tended to be happier and better adjusted than those who had been popular in high school. The whole concept of “high school pride,” which stoked artificial rivalries between schools that were then played out on the battlefield of sports and other competitions, was part of a mentality that endorsed winning and belittled losers.

“This sonnet first appeared in the online journal 14 by 14, and later was published in my second poetry book, The Whetstone Misses the Knife. The octave follows the pattern of an English sonnet, with quatrains rhymed in alternating lines: ABABCDCD. But the sestet switches to the less predictable rhyme scheme of the Italian sonnet: in this case, EFGEFG. The surprises of the rhyme scheme are meant to mirror the surprises in the twists of the conclusion.”

Susan McLean has two books of poetry, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
https://www.pw.org/content/susan_mclean

Photo: “Clique” by San Diego Shooter is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.