How to teach Jane Eyre

How to teach Jane Eyre is a poem by Nitoo Das written in 2010 and finally included in her second poetry book: Cyborg Proverbs.

Cyborg Proverbs
Nitoo Das,
Publisher:  Poetrywala
Publication Year:  2017
ISBN-13:  9789382749592
Language:  English

The poem can be read on Northeast Review:

How to Teach Jane Eyre

First, explain it is a crime

that lives incarnate in the tale.

A fire that births

a hunger. Curl to endure

the shifts between days when

you keep to your caste, days when

you laugh (a cold, distinct,

formal, mirthless laugh) and

still other days

when you pace and whirl into a man

with a gytrash by his side.

Restlessness, to put it plainly,

will be in your nature. Threatened

by the chalk, the chairs,

the dust up your nose, in your hair,

you have to detail

the tumult, the structure

of travel, the architecture of space. Always

choose winter

for clarifications. Document

the pantomime of hurricanes

and reserve, the opposites

of custom and love, night

and light, red

and white. Faith (like birds)

will be disguised

because no net ensnares

thought. Acknowledge the readers, silent

but unenslaved. Let them know

it’s easy to stir up mutiny. For

the strange little figures

gazing back at you, learn to simplify.

Defend Indian ink, question

good race. Rationalise:

violent, unfeminine, untrue.

Since the tongue of labour

has to be tasted, become a heathen, approach

the windowsill, keep a knife

with you at all times. Stop worrying

about using your teeth.

Finally, do not tire

of the routine

of a decade

in one afternoon.

The poet is interviewed on Scroll.in:

 In “How to teach Jane Eyre”, you write “do not tire/ of the routine/ of a decade/ in one afternoon.” How does teaching literature mould how you read and write?  (Urvashi Bahuguna)
This is a homage poem and, therefore, almost all the words are direct quotes from the novel. Interestingly, Jane Eyre, when she decides to leave Lowood and move to a new place, says, “I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon”. She decides to give up teaching in Lowood’s sad classrooms to look for the well-paid job of a governess. I cannot imagine giving up the classroom space for anything. All my passion derives from the day-to-day interactions with students. My teaching of Pandita Ramabai resulted in an epistolary series on her life, Robert Browning was responsible for a long phase of dramatic monologues. Many impromptu things I say in my lectures turn into poems. Once, while teaching Lyotard, I spoke of the hackable self. The phrase found its way into a poem. In almost twenty years of teaching, I have also learnt a lot from students’ interventions.