The fall semester has started again, and I have a new group of students who are stuck with me for their English class. I probably fall into the category of the slightly-weird-but-enthusiastic teacher. Yes, even after teaching for some years, I can still begin the semester in an enthusiastic frame of mind.

This is largely because I sincerely believe in the value of my subject. Critical reading and writing skills are helpful in so many ways, even if the students are a bit resistant to the idea. I am continually looking for ways to get the students interested – at least a little – in reading and writing.

So recently I have been reminiscing about important moments that I have had with literature.

A friend on Facebook (yes, too much time on FB when I should be working – quit judging me!) raised this question:

“For those of you who grew up reading comics: what was one thing about a character or plot that just blew your mind?”

I read comics when I was younger, but I don’t remember being particularly astounded by any one character or plot. I have always loved fantasy and science fiction, so I accepted pretty easily the fantastical parts of mainstream superhero comics.

I fell out of reading comics in high school. Instead, I split time between fantasy novels (like Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, and the Dragonlance stories) and historical romance novels (the kind that had shirtless Fabio types on the cover) and classics (my eighth grade teacher had introduced me to Shakespeare – so I was getting more interested in the “classics” that were assigned at school).

Then one night in college, I was stuck in my dorm room on a Saturday night, alone (fight with the boyfriend) and grumpy (finished one book but no new book on deck – I’ve long since fixed that tragic habit!) but not desperate enough to do homework. My roommate’s boyfriend had left a graphic novel in the room. So I picked that up and read it.

My perspective shifted radically.

The book was The Crow, and I was floored that a comic would address rape and murder and revenge. It was like The Duchess of Malfi in comic form. That’s when I got back into comics – first, remembering how much I liked them, and second, realizing that they were just like books – they could be anything, encompass everything – and there were whole depths out there to be sounded. The possibilities of literature exploded.

Then just a few months later, I had an additional revelation about books.

I was talking with a friend, telling him that my boyfriend had insisted we spend the summer dating other people to “see if we were sure” about each other (no, it didn’t work out the way he thought it would). So I was a free agent.

I said, “It’s too bad you’re still dating ____ because I always wanted to go out with you.”

He replied, “Don’t say that! I always wanted to go out with you, too!”

Then of course came the moment where we both looked at each other and thought, “What now?”

The next night we got together to talk about the situation and agreed we were interested in seeing what was there beyond friendship. But while I was free, he was not. So any exploration would have to wait. He suddenly said, “I want to read you something.”

‘I can’t make love to you,’ she said.

Relief and despair.

‘But I can kiss you.’

And so, from the first, we separated our pleasure. She lay on the rug and I lay at right angles to her so that only our lips might meet. Kissing in this way is the strangest of distractions. The greedy body that clamours for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.

from The Passion, by Jeanette Winterson

I fell madly in love (I think with the book, the author, and the guy).

I’d never had anyone read something to me before (and wow, if you’re a word nerd like I am, it’s quite romantic). I had always appreciated literature. I had plenty of books I adored and thought were moving and meaningful or funny and full of great descriptions, but this was perhaps the first time I recognized that the author had captured what I felt but had not put into words myself.

It was a revelation about how a book could touch me, how words could be so powerful and sensual, how an idea can resonate on a personal frequency.

I was twenty, and I thought I knew about love and passion (as many of us do at that age). But this was a new level of intensity. I could feel the words humming through me. I think it was the first time I understood how literature could be erotic, for the body and the mind. And beautiful in an intense, intimate way.

If pressed, I would say this was the moment I decided I had to be a writer. I thought, if I can do this, write something that someone reads and feels “yes! that is exactly what I would have said if I had thought of it!” then I would have accomplished something worthwhile with my life.

Of course, that’s not easy to measure, so I may be setting myself up for abject failure. But aren’t writers supposed to be tortured? Perhaps not – that way lies wearing too much black and hanging out in coffee shops while I bemoan society’s disdain for learning. As long as I can avoid the beret . . .

I know that my students may never feel that urge to write, but I hope they can find a piece of writing that speaks to them in some way, some work that helps them recognize the power of language. Maybe something that broadens their definition of literature. Maybe something that touches them personally. It doesn’t have to be anything that I assigned, but something. I wish everyone could experience the meaning and solace that can be found words.

Because even though Flaubert may be right, that “human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars,” we can still dance to simple music, and only practice will produce music that can melt the stars.