An event with an ode

My sudden inspiration to write an ode called up an amusing memory from 1965 when I was a student in the English Dept. at the University of Qld. It was in English I which was heavily populated by student teachers, who had to do that subject as a course requirement for their teaching diploma. So, as it turned out, I was the only real literary enthusiast in my tutorial group. I was there because I wanted to be.

My tutor was a "Mrs Curry", who was a very good looking woman who undoubtedly made Mr Curry happy by having a part-time job. And she too was a genuine literary enthusiast. So we got on well. Teachers have always liked me because I understand immediately what they are trying to convey. So I was undoubtedly her star pupil

So one day we were studying a poem which turned out to be an ode. It was probably Shelley's ‘To a Skylark’. Mrs Curry identified the poem as an ode and asked the class, "What sort of an ode is it?" All heads in the class stayed down, looking at their books, including mine. But I silently mouthed the word "Pindaric". I did not want to be the only smartypants in the room and actually say it. But I had evidently been under expectant observation by Mrs Curry, who promply said, without naming me, "Go on. Say it" which I did, to her obvious satisfaction.

As I said, it is satisying to a teacher when student really knows the subject. But it was one of the many occasions when the student teachers looked at me askance. Student teachers were not as much the bottom of the academic barrel as they are these days but were certainly not the cream of the academic crop. But it was amusing to be so watched that even an unuttered word was taken as a desired answer.