What Teachers Make

Mali’s “What Teachers Make” is a free verse, spoken word poem. While it has rhythm and rhyme, the poem does not follow a set rhyme scheme or metrical pattern. Because this poem is meant to be spoken aloud and performed, it’s written in long lines that often extend to the end of the page. The lines in “What Teachers Make” are determined by ideas; the line breaks often occur at moments when an idea is complete. For instance, Lines 14-15 break on the completion of an idea. The speaker pauses after “honest —” (Line 14), represented by the long em dash, and the poem begins with a new idea at the start of Line 15, represented by the word “because” (Line 15). Mali also uses line breaks and italicized text to distinguish moments of speech. Lines 26-28, for instance, are spoken to a student who has asked to go to the bathroom. Each line and each thought are clear to follow thanks to the use of end-stopped lines and line breaks. End-stopped lines are lines that feature punctuation, such as a period, dash or colon.