Sound Pedagogies
C. Kubasta · Pleiades · 2022
Sound Pedagogies C. Kubasta (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 40] In junior high, Mrs. R was a strict grammarian who made us diagram sentences, and even then I thought I'd prefer Mr. D (but he had a reputation for throttling students in the hallway), so in high school I tried to avoid both Mr. M, whose attentions to girl-athletes seemed inappropriate, and Mrs. C, who was a prescriptivist who taught the college-prep classes (although when she was dying we all went caroling at her house, and her already-grieving husband gave each singer an orange), and gravitated toward Mr. X who I've thought of for years as a friend and mentor—until last winter when he sent me a Facebook message apologizing for not sleeping with me, worried I'd think myself "unloveable," and everything he taught me seemed ruined: poetry, discovery of my voice, and a love of Joni Mitchell, John Prine, and Leonard Cohen, although I should have known then, because the lyrics to "Chelsea Hotel #2" have no place in a sophomore curriculum. Within the Reed-Kellogg systema base line containsthe simple sentence and a vertical linethat extends through the base separatessubject from predicate. In teachinggrammar, a proper sentencemust have both, and the predicateis a verb and its object (at least implied). Where it becomes difficult—to parse or diagram—is whether the object is director indirect. Should the linebe straight or a backslash, signalingthe earlier subject? Other modifiershang below the base lineplaced according to whatthey alter. What seemssimple takes on layers,hangers-on, additional weight. They are everywhere: Mr. X — Dr. Why — just call me Zeee Cf: the choice of texts. Sunlight fights its way through the window's grime. Whatever you've done to survive is the least dirty thing in the room. [End Page 41] C. Kubasta C. Kubasta writes poetry, fiction, and hybrid forms. Her most recent book is the short story collection Abjectification (Apprentice House, 2020). She wants to thank the artist Mollie Oblinger for layout help with "Sound Pedagogies." Find her at ckubasta.com and follow her @CKubastathePoet on Instagram and Twitter. Copyright © 2022 Pleiades and Pleiades Press