Teaching Colleagues:

You probably remember that we abstain ruthlessly from celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week because we celebrate you and support you every. single. day.

So not only are we appreciating you this week in our deep-down, everyday way, but we know you have no time to read anything this week! We got you.

We just have two quick things for you:

Thing #1: This Thursday, May 10th at 7:30pm EST, our colleague Skip Nicholson (Teaching Shakespeare Institute participant and then faculty member from forever) will be leading a discussion on Ending the School Year and Everything Else, our online teacher community. He’s a legendary presence on the AP listserv, and currently he is our Forsooth! Expert Teacher in Residence. << This title embarrasses him mightily, but he’ll have to live with it. To participate:

• Become a Teacher Member of the Folger Shakespeare Library
  
• Once you've completed your transaction head over to Forsooth!
• Log-onto Forsooth! using the email and password you just used to become a Teacher Member
  
• At 8:00PM ET on Thursday, May 10th, sign in to Forsooth! and stay on the home page. You’ll see a live chat box (like AOL Instant Messenger or Google Chat) right on the home page
  
• Join the chat as a GUEST
  
• You will then be prompted to enter a name for the chat—please use your FIRST & LAST NAME so we can follow up with you after the chat if necessary! (Examples: William Shakespeare, Peggy O'Brien)
  
• No need to RSVP in advance. Just show up this Thursday and ask Skip all about ending the school year and everything else!

Thing #2: One of my favorite poems of all time, in honor of you and all those you have saved.

With great gratitude,

PO’B

Peggy O'Brien, Ph.D. 
Director of Education
Folger Shakespeare Library
202.675.0372
@obrienfolger 

Mrs. Krikorian

She saved me. When I arrived in the sixth grade,

a known criminal, the new teacher

asked me to stay after school the first day, she said

I’ve heard about you. She was a tall woman,

with a deep crevice between her breasts,

and a large, calm nose. She said,

This is a special library pass.

As soon as you finish your hour’s work—

that hour’s work that took ten minutes

and then the devil glanced into the room

and found me empty, a house standing open—

you can go to the library. Every hour

I’d zip through the work, and slip out of

my seat as if out of God’s side and sail

down to the library, down through the empty

powerful halls, flash my pass

and stroll over to the dictionary

to look up the most interesting word

I knew, spank, dipping two fingers

into the jar of library paste to

suck that tart mucilage as I

came to the page with the cocker spaniel’s

silks curling up like the fine steam of the body.

After spank and breast, I’d move on

to Abe Lincoln and Helen Keller,

safe in their goodness till the bell, thanks

to Mrs. Krikorian, amiable giantess

with the kind eyes. When she asked me to write

a play and direct it, and it was a flop,

and I hid in the coat-closet, she brought me a candy-cane

as you lay a peppermint on the tongue, and the worm

will come up out of the bowel to get it.

And so I was emptied of Lucifer

and filled with school glue and eros and

Amelia Earhart, saved by Mrs. Krikorian.

And who had saved Mrs. Krikorian?

When the Turks came across Armenia,

who slid her into the belly of a quilt, who

locked her in a chest, who mailed her to America?

And that one, who saved her, and that one—

who saved her, to save the one

who saved Mrs. Krikorian, who was

standing there on the sill of sixth grade, a

wide-hipped angel, smokey hair

standing up lightly all around her head?

I end up owing my soul to so many,

to the Armenian nation, one more soul someone

jammed behind a stove, drove

deep into a crack in a wall,

shoved under a bed. I would wake

up in the morning, under my bed—not

knowing how I had got there—and lie

in the dusk, the dustballs beside my face

round and ashen, shining slightly

with the eerie comfort of what is neither good or evil.

Sharon Olds
1996