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Gary Dop is an English professor and writer in residence at North Central University in Minneapolis. 


Now that it's December, college students are wrapping up their work for the fall semester, turning in final papers and giving their final presentations. I'll be one of the professors listening to those presentations.


Over the years, I've spent a lot of time listening to really awful student presentations. And while I've heard some brilliant ones, too, I've come to realize that students have to be reminded that both what you say and how you say it really matter. I've taken to reminding my students by reading them this poem, which I wrote using some of their unique choices as a resource.

Shakespeare, the top American writer ever,


like Russell Crowe. "Merchant of Venice" 


is a problem play because it's about hard crap 


like racism and the civil rights movement, 


but not Martin Luther King who was southern


which's Willie's nick name. People call me


Slash. Al Pacino's a character in the movie 


adapted by Shakespeare just like the play, 


to play girls, and no girls were allowed 


in his theaters all over the globe. Even girl parts


like the chick who looks like Cate Blanchett, 


who dresses like a boy — like Cate did

 
when she played Bob Dylan — that girl's named 


after the car, Portia, to indicate she's wealthy —  


even those girls were boys, but nobody was gay


back then — no offense. The Shylock wants 


a pound of Jeremy Irons to pay for his sins 


according to the Angel-Kind church, which is like


Catholics but their Pope gets divorced. 


Hitler killed 6 million Jews. Israel was founded 


in 1948. One scholar, Ilikeitlikethat74 


on Cheatpapers.com, suggested that Shakespeare 


I wasn't supposed to — that was my notes. 


from "Merchant" even if we don't know Jews 


and we don't like Christians. In conclusion


in that one with Keanu Reeves: "I am a Jew.  


do we not bleed?" It's like, If you tickle us, 


do we not laugh? In conclusion, you grasp


and would have stood on the white cliffs

(A version of this poem was first published in Quiddity International Literary Journal.) 

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Gary Dop

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True love is not the only course that never did run smooth.

Over the years, I've spent a lot of time listening to really awful student presentations. And while I've heard some brilliant ones, too, I've come to realize that students have to be reminded that both what you say and how you say it really matter.

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