The Teacher by Lola Haskins
Lola Haskins’ poetry has appeared in The Atlantic, The London Review of Books, The New York Quarterly, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, and has been broadcast on NPR and BBC. Her fourteenth collection, How Small, Confronting Morning, is due from Jacar Press in 2016. Prose works include Solutions Beginning with A, original fables about women illustrated by Maggie Taylor (Modernbook), Not Feathers Yet: A Beginner’s Guide to the Poetic Life (Backwaters) and Fifteen Florida Cemeteries: Strange Tales Unearthed (University Press of Florida).
Ms. Haskins has been lucky enough to win three book awards, including the Iowa Poetry Prize, and several prizes for individual poems, including The Emily Dickinson/Writer Magazine Award from Poetry Society of America. She has also received two poetry fellowships from the NEA, and four from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. Take all this with a grain of salt, though. After all, though she’d rather not admit it, she’s old.
Besides writing for herself, Ms. Haskins super-enjoys collaborating . Favorite experiences include (but aren’t limited to) Paul Richards’ settings of Forty-Four Ambitions for the Piano for piano and alto; Willis Bodine’s adaptations of How Small for chorus, writing flash fictions for Ken Kerslake’s paintings, and, especially, playing the speaking Mata Hari using a script she wrote for a ballet performance commissioned by one of Florida’s two touring companies. Once in a rehearsal, she asked the director if just for fun, she could try a dance walk on stage and was told “Absolutely not”.
After 28 years teaching Computer Science (a job for which her academic credentials are non-existent) Lola is entering her tenth year on the faculty of Rainier Writer’s Workshop (see previous disclaimer), a low-residency MFA program in Tacoma, WA. To buy her books and see some poems—in words and on video– please visit her at lolahaskins.com.
postcardpoemsandprose.wordpress.com 
This one is challenging … and I have mixed reactions … first, I haven’t seen the word ‘blackboard’ in a long time … many I see now are green … but blackboards are meant to be erased … the truths written on them are meant to be erased … all part of the nebulae that swirls … so I am perplexed … but I’m often this way … cheers! DaP
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Most interesting
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Mesmerizing and memorable :). Nice writing!
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Brilliant! What’s worse is that you’re usually the one who did both the writing and erasing.
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That last line really grabs you. Love the brevity of this.
marion
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