Sam Swope

A LESSER FORM OF IMMORTALITY? IT'LL DO.
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by Sam Swope, Author of I am A Pencil
Mr. Krick was my grade-school art teacher, and I always looked forward to his weekly visits to our class. Given my vivid recollection of the man, it's strange that I remember only one of his lessons, but I suppose my memory chose it as the archetype. At any rate, Mr. Krick gave us crayons, then asked us to draw while listening to Copland's "Appalachian Spring," Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" and something atonal, I think by Schoenberg. He said, "Don't think. Just listen to the music and draw." And I did, my heart racing as I channeled music into three very different and passionate pictures. Mr. Krick never knew what he'd done for me that day, and when I heard a while back that he'd died, I felt a twinge of guilt, wishing I'd thanked him for that pure creative moment.

Some years ago I taught creative writing to immigrant grade-school kids in New York City. Wanting them to have similarly powerful memories to sustain them when they grew up, I asked them to write outside at night and under a tree. I had them curl their bodies into magical islands that then became the settings for stories. We did countless exercises. Which ones (if any) will my students remember? It's possible I'll never know, because after we said goodbye, they gradually fell out of touch. This is natural; children need to move on. But I'll always wonder what became of them, and a few, especially the unhappy ones, will haunt me forever.

Recently I published a memoir about teaching those kids and was interviewed about the book on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Far-flung family and long-lost friends happened to be tuned in and sent congratulatory notes, including my high-school English teacher.

I hadn't seen Mr. Witt in decades, but I pictured him immediately--young, tall, earnest, clean-cut. He'd been an easygoing, intelligent teacher who directed the school plays, and sometimes he and his wife invited students over for soda and conversation. As with Mr. Krick, I recall just a single lesson. Mr. Witt, wearing a light blue cardigan, is seated on a high stool while reading aloud Shelley's 1818 sonnet "Ozymandias":

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I was Mr. Witt's student in 1970. Like me, most of my classmates were anti-establishment. I vaguely recall some joking comparison of Nixon to Ozymandias, his famous nose crumbling in the desert, but mostly I remember how quiet we all got when Mr. Witt focused our attention on the poem's stark implication that everyone and everything will ultimately be forgotten: Nothing beside remains. In a voice so quiet it startled me, he said, "This isn't a poem I can think about when I'm shaving."

This came as a revelation. I'd never realized poetry could have so powerful an effect, and because I wanted that intensity of feeling, too, I read "Ozymandias" until I'd memorized it. In the end, it never unnerved me as it had Mr. Witt, but over the years it's been a valued companion, helping temper my pride and ambition.

Mr. Witt must be in his 60s now. He told me when he heard my name on the radio that he'd thought, "Can that be my Sam Swope?" Realizing it was, he tracked me down to let me know he'd always wondered what became of me and was pleased to find I'd landed OK.

Do we ever stop craving the approval of our teachers? I was glad to learn I'd been remembered, and replied immediately, thanking Mr. Witt and telling him I thought of him whenever I thought of "Ozymandias," which was more often than he might expect. I also mentioned his comment about shaving, which he didn't seem to recall, but he was clearly pleased to learn he kept company with such a great poem.

Mr. Witt appears to have made his peace with Shelley's sonnet, and seemed content with a lesser form of immortality. The torch had been passed--from his teachers to him, from him to me, from me to my students... although I can't yet speak for mine, of course. That part of the chain must be taken on faith, as I wait for a student to happen on my book about our time together, discover with delight he's been remembered, then drop me a line to tell me I have, too.