IAIN Crichton Smith, who was himself a schoolteacher, ruminates on the fate of old school text-books and jotters (many a loft must be full of them!). The piece is in his New Collected Poems (Carcanet, £18.95).
THE OLD SCHOOL BOOKS
Do you remember
the old text books
the old jotters
that we used to have?
What has happened to them?
I cannot understand it.
In those days they were so confident
telling us about countries
about electricity, about Latin,
each reflected the other.
They were like marble
they were like commandments,
they were so dull and
So deadly accurate.
They were like our elders
old and grey and dull
standing so foursquare
against our skyline.
In them no scent of roses,
In them no scent at all,
as green as arsenic,
Linoleum acres.
And now they have gone away
not even buried
They have gone to some attic
beyond our frontiers.
Like old film stars
like those who have once been famous
they are lying in old rooms
with their outdated message.
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