The title does not lie. The whole of this book takes place within a two hour ‘Introduction to Poetry’ class. For those of you who took ‘Intro to Poetry’, this book will remind you of what you hoped it would be like. There are sneaky peeks into the antics of the Beat Generation. There are satisfyingly obscure jokes and references. Then there are the rambling stories about sex and drugs and poetry slams. For anyone who thought ‘Intro to Poetry’ was a pointless waste of time, this book will also confirm your suspicions. The lecturer tells crazy stories, half of which are made up. He rants about ‘commie kitsch’, ‘cultural lesbianism’, and tells everyone that one of the necessary tools of poetry is a susceptibility to hypnotism. He even admits, “I don’t want answers to questions posed by my ranting.”

The book is funny but there is also an underlying questioning of the nature of poetry. Is poetry an outdated form or does it still have the capacity to reveal truths that can shock a disaffected youth? The lecturer answers this question by assigning each student a Ghost-Companion. This poet, dead or alive, will be a guide not just in class but throughout their lives. Codrescu suggests that poets can still teach and inspire. They can reveal the past through their experiences and through their questions. Although, just in case you think Codrescu is blindly optimistic he also points out that Blake could be seen to champion infanticide: ‘Better to strangle an infact in the cradle than nurse unwanted desires.’ So let’s not get too carried away.

The Poetry Lesson is a difficult book to categorise. It is not a novel, a memoir or poetry but it is a little of all of these. Codrescu uses the unstable format well. He allows minor comments and events that take place in class to lead into long analyses and stories about the past. The imminent retirement of the lecturer lends a slightly nostalgic sadness to everything that takes place. He knows that he will be gone soon, just as all his students have left, year after year, “headed for the unpredictable, the unexpected, the unimaginable. Or, obversely, for the predictable, the expected, and the easily imaginable.” For all the humour of this book, there is a constant return to the passing of time, to death and to the importance of poetry. Perhaps the best lesson to learn from this book is that life is nuanced and strange, poetry is powerful, everything is possible but nearly everyone sells out.

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