In its ongoing effort to make a difference in higher education (our motto: it’s all about the children!), protein wisdom will begin posting a series of teaching aids designed to make the humanities more socially relevant. After all, who said learning shouldn’t be fun (beside some prick I once had at Hopkins, I mean)?

Lesson 1: Poetry Appreciation

Peruse the following canvas and read the accompanying verse text. 1. Discuss: What is it that the subject of the following piece is feeling in each of the frames? How do you know? Would he be feeling any differently if, say, thermobaric munitions were raining down from the sky? 2. What is the connection between the repeated image of Saddam Hussein and the excerpts from the three poems? How do the images play off of the text? Does historical context play a part in “meaning” here? Would the nexus of image and text differ if, say, Army Rangers appeared in the background, their laser sights focused directly on Saddam, while thermobaric munitions rained from the sky? 3. Taken as a whole, does this piece approach the level of poetry (as you currently conceive of it)? Why or why not? Would the piece be more or less compelling were, say, thermobaric munitions raining from the sky, and were American Special Forces units on horseback to appear in the background carrying the severed heads of Saddam’s bodyguards like so many bearded cauliflowers? 4. Were there a forth panel, what verse might it contain? What rhymes with “thermobaric munitions”? With “Daisy Cutter”? With “Bunker Buster”? 5. Bonus: Can you name the authors and poems? Would you be able to do so were a scimitar, say, being held flush to your jugular?

[Saddam responds: “You know, I am a writer, too — though my tastes run to the more…how would you say? commercial? Buxom and harried vixens in peril, that sort of thing — young and sweaty maidens all a-gallop, their burquas shorn and their ample bosoms heaving as they run determined from their oppressors… Only to be saved from dishonor by a strapping and virile King who, after beating back scores of infidel dogs with his mighty sword and x-ray vision, keeps his identity a secret from the thankful desert fox. He is content, you see, to allow his deeds to speak for themselves.

“Besides, he is hung like a camel, this incognito King — and she is not permitted to refuse his advances anyway. Umm. How I do enjoy the randy camel sex…”

protein wisdom’s rejoinder: Dude, you are, like, so totally fucked up in the head…]