Final Exam: Poems About Teachers and Their Students

J. Barry Koops

ISBN 10: 0578617536 / ISBN 13: 9780578617534

Published by Brooks Street Books, 2020

About this Item

Paperback. Cover shows very minor shelving wear, otherwise an unblemished copy.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Ships same or next business day!

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Final Exam: Poems About Teachers and Their Students
• Publisher: Brooks Street Books
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0578617536
• ISBN 13: 9780578617534
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: As New
• Weight: 13 ounces

About this title

Synopsis

Some teachers stay with you forever. This book is for them — and for the students they shaped. The perfect gift for a graduating senior, a beloved professor, a retiring teacher, or anyone who has ever been changed by a classroom. Final Exam: Poems About Teachers and Their Students brings together 85 poems by luminaries including Billy Collins, Seamus Heaney, Louise Erdrich, Mary Karr, and Jane Kenyon — and the many remarkable lesser-known poets they share company with. Edited by J. Barry Koops — teacher, professor, headmaster, and poet — it is a tribute to the teaching life, and to the profound, lasting bond between those who teach and those who learn. It started with a poem torn out of The New Yorker. Koops notes it was the voice of the poem that snagged his attention. In the 85 poems he eventually chose, he recognized the voices of real people: the math teacher across the hall; a colleague whose passing he mourns; a professor whose fingerprints are all over his life; a classmate remembered over decades. In the four sections of this anthology you will hear something like threads of conversations, voices responding to one another — objecting, refuting, reflecting. Koops offered this book as a tribute to teachers and professors who chose a life of significance, a life that made a difference — the teaching life.

About the Author

J. Barry Koops completed his undergraduate studies at Calvin College and earned his MA and PhD in English and Education at the University of Michigan. He served as university professor, principal, superintendent, headmaster, and consultant throughout a distinguished career in education. A poet himself, Koops devoted years to assembling Final Exam as a tribute to the teaching life. He passed away in 2025.