As one might gather from the title, this slim little chapbook contains poetry that concerns itself mostly with the teaching profession. Taylor Mali, captain of the Urbana National Slam team and a teacher at the Browning School in NYC, does a fair job of maintaining the balance between the serious ("Undivided Attention") and the entertaining ("I Could Be a Poet").

"Proofreading your peppers is a matter of the utmost impotence," is a masterful example of Mali's gift for satirical wordplay:

"But there are several missed aches
that a spell checker can't can't catch catch.
For instant, if you accidentally leave a word,
your spell chukker won't put it in you..."

That's not to say that all of the material in this chapbook is brilliant. "Objection Overruled," reads like a mission statement from the National Education Association, ending with a rather trite : "I make a goddamn difference, how about you?" This piece could have used a little more of the poet and a lot less of the teacher.

Overall, though, I'd say this is a fine little collection containing many poems which display genuine poetry that is as print-worthy as it is crowd pleasing.

reviewed by JCE