Math Problem
The first poem I can remember
writing I called “Math.” I wrote
it in fourth grade for an assignment
by Ms. Cleta Hoffman. It was
a sonnet, and this is how it started:
“Math is hard. Very hard/Addition,
Subtraction, Division./For math, my
teacher is my guard, she gives me
supervision.” I believe the second
stanza goes: “One, two, three, four/
union, multiple, quotient.” But that
is all I remember of it. My fifth grade
teacher entered into a statewide con
test and it “won” – meaning it was
published in a real “magazine,”
along with, no doubt, every other
entry by elementary school kids
in Arkansas. I remember getting
to see the publication but not
getting to keep it (it cost a sum,
I can’t remember how much,
hard-copy literary journals have
to make ends meet somehow).
It was a silly little poem, but
given that out from it sprung
a lifetime of them, I’ve for
many years wanted to get
my hands on it. Just the
poem would be fine. I
doubt I’ll ever have the
opportunity. But more
than anything, this is a
note of massive gratitude
to Ms. Hoffman and Ms.
Mendenhall, teachers of
fourth and fifth grade
in Charleston Elementary,
both of whom went well
above and beyond just to
see that I got encourage
ment, if not general
recognition. That is a
gift that grows more
profound to me the
further away I get from
the time I wrote a silly
rhyming sonnet that
I called “Math.”
