New Bildung
David Ehrenman
The squeak of the new chairs
occupied by young people
stuffed in suits exposed
our constant squirms.
Once Mr. __ started,
clicking keyboards
chirp like crickets
at a standup show,
an artificial noise
smothering the
emptiness
- - -
David’s notes: “This intentionally dwindling poem combines two particularly memorable moments from my school days. I vividly remember the day our high school’s choir’s rehearsal room got slick new chairs to replace the old upholstered ones; we spent the whole rehearsal shifting around to hear the squeaking made by the glossy plastic material. Reframing what amounted to a practical joke as a symptom of discomfort felt right when writing that day into the poem, especially considering the school’s dress code. The other incident contributing to the poem came from a lecture day in college when a sixty-person class fell entirely silent. Noise is natural; silence is strange. Without any sound besides the tireless typing, the classroom felt disembodied, and I hypothesized from personal experience that of all the students clicking away, every single one wielding an open laptop with open internet, more than half were probably clothes shopping or the like. The class struck me as a cruel audience barely giving the performer a chance. How cruel is it to even compare a scholar giving a lecture for an essential class to an unappreciated comic? Stitching the two memories together into a single poem completed the scene demonstrating an awkward school experience. Given the current crises around higher education, I gave this poem the title ‘New Bildung,’ turning the rich, suggestive term Bildung from the German into a punnish nod to the fresh chairs (‘new building’) with the added benefit of the Anglicization ‘dung.’“
- - -
David Ehrenman is an Australian–American poet and educator based in Minnesota. His work appears in Poems for Persons of Interest, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Ekstasis Magazine, and The Mythic Circle, as well as his Substack, Life in Circles.
- - -
Hop to…
David S. | Ethan | Gail | Janet | Janice | Jared | John | Mark | Martin | Melissa | Mike | Paul | Steven | Susan | Word-Bird