The Muse

I tell you the truth:
I have often loved poets,
but never much understood them.

And they, in turn,
while Love's fancy carried them,
loved me in chaste thought
and impure touch,
with precise words
and love neither quite cruel
nor entirely kind,
but always violent - for a time;

then sang songs
of beauty divine
or brilliance sublime
(or some other such thing)
sang to possess but not to be so,
and sang to exorcise
the betrayal of imperfection.

And this also: I never fancied myself
a poet, nor even a poetess,
but times there have been when
thoughts sprang, Athena-like
from me, though sullied by
the Afterbirth that I dare not bury,
which renders me
unclean for seven days -
or is it fourteen?

But their meaning
I shall have to leave
to those with a sharper pen.

So, this is slightly off-topic, but lately I've often found myself thinking of intellectual kinship, and what I can expect or hope to find in my students. My university supervisor* has challenged me recently to attempt to create students who might share in those interests which brought me to teaching in the first place. I wonder how I should go about doing this. Perhaps a book club? If so, then how? My most gifted students are all not interested in adding any activities to their plate, and dread expending intellectual effort that does not involve the memorization of the periodic table of the elements for trivia competitions. (On that note, I wonder how our National Academic League did in their meet today?)

Ideas would be greatly appreciated.

*(I almost feel like a hometown cheerleader on the Today show who feels the need to give a shout-out to all her friends and family, as of course I know that the aforementioned supervisor will be reading this. Woohoo! Go, Hopkins!)