This was not in my job description . . .

On Tuesdays, I spend two periods helping out with a 13th grade English class. They're a nice group, if overstressed - this is their last year at the school, so they're gearing up for their university qualifying exams.

This semester, they're looking at different ways love is portrayed in English literature, and particularly in poetry, which I gather they haven't done much of. They spent the first period yesterday going over a poem by Walter Raleigh (sort of a review of Ren Lit for me). Then, during the second period, the students worked in groups on analying a more modern poem, Adrian Henri's "Love Is . . ." (not a favorite of mine, since it takes the form of a "poem as list," which can get annoying, but I'm not the one who has to work with it, so there).

Anyway, I was doing my thing and circulating among the groups, helping out with questions of vocabulary, etc., when one of the groups called me over. One of the guys in the group cleared his throat and asked me, "What is your interpretation of this first line, 'Love is feeling cold in the back of vans'? We don't understand it."

I checked for signs that they were putting me on, but they all looked serious enough. Doing the teacherly thing, I told them that I didn't have an interpretation; I was waiting for them to tell me what the line meant. They groaned and said, "But we don't understand."

"Well," I said, "all of the words in the line are clear, right? You know what a van is?"

They did.

"Can you think of any reason why someone might be cold in a van?"

They thought. "Because he doesn't have the heating on? He's sitting alone in his cold van?"

"Ah," I said. "What if he's not alone?"

They considered. "He is with his girlfriend in the van? But why would you sit with someone in a cold van? This is not romantic."

"Well, what if you're cold because you're . . ." I looked for an appropriate expression, painfully aware that the teacher was only about two yards away, "rather underdressed?"

A few seconds, then comprehension dawned. "You mean, they are having sex in the van?" They made faces. "Really? We had thought that might be it, but we didn't think someone would put that in a poem."

Welcome to the world of poetry, kids.