Teacher/Pizza Guy : poems / by Jeff Kass.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kass, Jeff.

Series:

Made in Michigan writers series.

Made in michigan writers series

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (92 pages).

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2019

Place of Publication:

Detroit, MI : Wayne State University Press, 2019.

Summary:

Teacher/Pizza Guy is a collection of autobiographical poems from the 2016-17 school year in which Jeff Kass worked as a full-time English teacher and a part-time director for a literary arts organization and still had to supplement his income by delivering pizzas a few nights a week. In the collection, Kass is unapologetically political without distracting from the poems themselves but rather adds layers and nuances to the fight for the middle class and for educators as a profession. The timing of this book is beyond relevant. As a public high school teacher in America, Kass's situation is not uncommon. In September 2018, Time published an article detailing how many public school teachers across the country and in a variety of environments work multiple jobs to help make ends meet. Teacher/Pizza Guy chronicles Kass's experience of teaching, directing, feeding people, and treading the delicate balance of holding himself accountable to his wife and kids, his students, his customers, and his own mental and physical health while working three jobs in contemporary America. The journey of that year was draining, at times daunting, at times satisfying, but always surprising. Many of the ideas for these poems were initially scribbled onto the backs of pizza receipts or scratched out during precious free moments amidst the chaos of the school day. A driving force behind the book is Philip Levine's poem "What Work Is," which Kass believes attempts to examine not only the dignity and complexity of what we think physical, tangible work is but also the exhausting, albeit sometimes fulfilling nature of emotional work. Teacher/Pizza Guy is a funny and relatable collection for readers, thinkers, educators, and pizza lovers everywhere.

Contents:

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

I

Oh, Splotch of Blue Paint

It's strange

Today for the first time I notice

Making the first milkshake

My daughter can't find her field hockey jersey

Who stole the remote?

Dough tray

Something extra

II

Classroom door open

The upside-down remote-control doorstop

Purveyor of pies

I don't take yearbook photos anymore

Marty blows up

Wrong city ghazal

Karma's a fuckin' bitch

Leonard says his poems got rejected from the youth literary magazine

Unworthy

I'd be lying

The manager talks about getting engaged

III

The crime

IV

Young man, take your headphones out

Territories

Emma broke her friend's arm by hitting her with a pillow

Sestina for the segregated class

A colleague says sometimes he thinks anyone who's been married more than five years deserves a medal

Against automatic hand dryers

James waves at me in the middle of the night

Outside the window

To the driver fired for forging tips on credit card receipts

Garbage day

For the 3 a.m. road warriors

Another school year, another email

Acknowledgments

About the Author.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780814347164

0814347169

OCLC:

1109825181