Isa Cruz

Last Friday night, poet Taylor Mali ’87 took students, faculty and community members alike to school.

Packed into Kanbar Auditorium in Studzinski Recital Hall, the audience took part in an event for the Longfellow Days celebration, an annual month-long event commemorating writer and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who graduated from Bowdoin in 1825.

“[Longfellow’s] work helped establish and define American literature and was so popular that some referred to him as a rock star of his time,” Director of Campus Services, Events, Summer Programs and Logistics Joe Anderson said in his introductory remarks.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Longfellow’s commencement from the College, making this Longfellow Days celebration all the more special. One hundred years ago, Longfellow Days, a collaboration between the College and the Brunswick Downtown Association, saw writers Robert Frost and Edna St. Vincent Millay come to speak. Now, for the bicentennial, Mali was the guest of honor.

Mali appeared as one of the original poets on HBO’s series “Def Poetry Jam” and is a four-time Slam Poetry Champion. The author of acclaimed collections of poetry and a nonfiction book titled, “What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World,” which centers the vitality of teachers to society, Mali’s work blends sarcasm with sincerity, absurdism with activism and humor with heart.

In his talk, Mali read a poem about a friend who sent him a mistyped email saying “My deepest condiments” after the passing of Mali’s father.

“Have you ever been to a funeral and you feel you are all cried out, and somebody giving the elegy starts crying, and you realize that there’s more tears? Laughter is the key to tears you think you don’t have,” Mali said. “That was one of the greatest condolence letters—no excuse me, that was one of the greatest condiment letters I have ever received.”

Opening for Mali was a trio of Bowdoin students—Chayma Charifi ’25, Kaitlin Weiss ’25 and Weatherspoon ’25—who got the chance to have dinner with Mali beforehand and perform their own poetry at the start of the event.

“I really should put into my contract that any students who read before I read need to be bad,” Mali said.

Mali stated that his comfort in front of an audience and interacting with those younger than him undoubtedly comes from his background as a teacher, which continues to inspire and influence his writing to this day.

“I stopped teaching in a classroom in June of 2000, and every time I mention that I no longer teach, some person comes up and says, ‘You’re still teaching, you just have a different type of classroom.’ I appreciate that.… I don’t feel like I make the same kind of difference that I used to make, but it’s still teaching,” Mali said.

Towards the end of the night, most of Mali’s poems turned to the subject of teaching, defending the profession, thanking those who teach and pushing back against cuts to the arts.

For Mali, audience interaction was also key. He asked audience members to help him add improvisational lines to his poems and fielded questions. At one point, he even took an audience member’s phone and recited a poem straight into her camera.

“Undivided attention: what all teachers want and few of us ever get,” Mali said.

Mali is still teaching, leading drop-in writing workshops with the Brooklyn Poets organization in New York City, where he is based.

“If you find yourself in Brooklyn, drop in,” Mali said.

At the conclusion of the event, Mali read his most famous piece, “What Teachers Make,” and thanked the College and the Brunswick Downtown Association for inviting him back to his alma mater. Finally, Mali left the crowd with some parting words.

“Everyone is a teacher every hour, every minute. In fact, this recital hall is now my classroom, and I love you,” Mali said.

Chayma Charifi ’25 is a member of the Bowdoin Orient.