OVERVIEW
In this poem, the persona is a teacher who heads the English department in a British school. She introduces her class to a guest speaker, a practising poet, but sounds ungracious and annoyed that she has to entertain her. The guest has been invited to discuss her poems with the youngsters. The English teacher tells the students to raise some questions, to justify the £40 paid to the guest, but says that it is unnecessary to write “reams” of notes, making the guest-poet feel unwelcome. After the talk, the English teacher as host does not offer the usual courtesies shown to guest speakers, rejecting the guest’s suggestion that they lunch together.
POWER STRUGGLE BETWEEN LITERATURE WRITER & TEACHER
The poem features the conflict between writers and teachers of English Literature. Writers often resent the way teachers misinterpret their work or don’t give it due attention. As this poem suggests, teachers however are also often envious of the fame that writers enjoy and feel that their own talent in promoting understanding of literary texts is under-appreciated. Also, many English Literature teachers are themselves amateur poets, writing in their spare time. As a poet herself, Duffy offers a CRITICAL VIEW OF ENGLISH TEACHERS, portraying them as unimaginative and far too narrow-minded and petty to truly understand good poetry.
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE
“Head of English” is a dramatic monologue. In such poems, the poem is a speech uttered by the persona in conversation with one person or a group. The presence of others are signaled by clues, such as by the persona repeating a question posed by the other before answering it. For e.g., in this poem, the teacher-persona repeats the guest’s invitation to dine together, “Lunch in the hall?” before she rejects her.
We only hear the persona’s voice in the conversation, not whom she addresses, and hence it is a monologue. But we know another person is being addressed The presence of another person is indicated either by persona repeating the other’s words before responding to them.
The purpose of a dramatic monologue is to feature the character of the persona, who is often a familiar social type that the poet wishes to depict critically. The character traits of the persona are conveyed by her use of language and the content of her speech.
Dramatic monologues are often funny and have satiric intent. The humour comes from the exaggerated portrayal of the character flaws and hypocrisies of the persona.
HOW THE SPEAKER’S VOICE CONVEYS HER CHARACTER
Here are a few lines taken from the poem, with my interpretation of how they convey certain impressions about the persona.
“Today, we have a poet in the class./A real live poet with a published book.”
The teacher seems to suggest that real poets are rare, that many of them pretend to be poets but have never published. She shows herself to be cynical.
“Perhaps we’re going to witness verse hot from the press./Who knows.”
The comment “Who knows” suggests that the teacher does not think it likely that the guest poet will be able to come up with fine lines of inspired poetry at the drop of a hat. The teacher taunts a guest who has not done her any harm. But she also displays her ignorance about the poetic process—poems involve hard work, with writers carefully choosing words and ideas: they are not impromptu creations.
“Please show your appreciation/ by clapping. Not too loud.”
This shows the teacher’s envy of the attention the poet gets: she doesn’t want the students to be too enthusiastic in their show of interest but pretends she’s concerned by the noise.
“Remember/ the lesson on assonance, for not all poems,/ sadly, rhyme these days.”
Probably the guest-poet uses assonance rather than rhyme in her poetry. The teacher tries to make the guest feel inferior about this, hinting that she lacks the ability to create rhymes. However the teacher shows that she has an outdated understanding of poetry—some of the best modern poetry is free verse, which is unrhymed. It’s not rhyme that makes a poem’s excellence. The teacher shows a mind that is closed against new ideas, not a good quality in a teacher!
“Open a window at the back. We don’t/want winds of change about the place.”
Poetry offers us new ways of seeing issues and situations. It promotes progressive ideas concerning equality and freedom. The teacher shows how clearly unqualified she is to be an educator as she prefers to cling to old, musty ideas. She misuses her teacher’s authority by forcing students to close their minds too. It is only too clear that poetry should not be taught by such a teacher.
Would you like to pick out other lines from the poem and comment on how they reveal the teacher’s character?