A true tale about something that should have traumatised us (I’m not sure if it was a Guardian Angel or a sense of survival that prevented me from laughing - perhaps the old wretch was right!) Should be 1959 not ‘57 🙈 #PoemsAbout #ItsaSin @alanparry83.bsky.social @brokenspinearts.bsky.social - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

carolynthomas.bsky.social • 2 days ago

A true tale about something that should have traumatised us (I’m not sure if it was a Guardian Angel or a sense of survival that prevented me from laughing - perhaps the old wretch was right!) Should be 1959 not ‘57 🙈
#PoemsAbout #ItsaSin
@alanparry83.bsky.social
@brokenspinearts.bsky.social

Comments

tracihug.bsky.social•1 day ago

“I asked” comes across loud and clear as the perceived “sin” from the teacher’s point of view. Yikes, well done!

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thank you, Traci 😁🙏

johnchmura.bsky.social•2 days ago

OMG, the image in the third stanza of being bored and flipping through sins. And the idea of no hyperbole, “but…”

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thank you, John. Those sessions were a nightmare and we were already in trouble for drawing pitchforks on a previous occasion! The old Penny Catechism was a source of perplexity and amusement (or terror, depending on your disposition!) and Sister St John was lyrical in her denunciation 🤣

paulwritespoems.bsky.social•1 day ago

Cracking read. That ending is class. Absolutely class. 👏👏👏

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thank you, Paul. Delighted you enjoyed it 😊

miriamcolleran2.bsky.social•1 day ago

Brilliant

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Cheers 😁

miriamcolleran2.bsky.social•1 day ago

It’s so graphic. Almost feels like being in that (dreadful) classroom.

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

It’s a long time ago but one of many stories of the total madness of Sister St John that the delinquents among us still laugh about. I think those of a more sensitive nature might have been scarred for life! And it didn’t help that she spoke with a posh English accent! (I was tempted…🤣)

uhume.bsky.social•2 days ago

"There are lots!" 🤍😇🤍

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Indeed there are 🤣 although it’s been many years since the Penny Catechism was used.

wordingway.bsky.social•1 day ago

powerful and haunting—truly stunning. feel like i was snagged on spiritual barbed wire. the final question/last line 🔥💣

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thank you so much, David 🙏 Really appreciate it

wordingway.bsky.social•1 day ago

absolutely. my pleasure

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

🙏

carmellapoetry.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is such an accomplished piece of writing! 👏

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thank you so much, Carmella 🙏

carmellapoetry.bsky.social•1 day ago

You are so welcome Carolyn.

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

🙏

alanparry83.bsky.social•2 days ago

‘she crashed towards us, / a raging flood of righteousness’ pure cinematic menace. The restraint up to that point makes the fury land harder. #KeepWriting #PoemsAbout #ItsASin

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thank you, Alan 😊 It was, quite possibly, the fastest she’d moved in years!

rburrows.bsky.social•1 day ago

😂 Glorious!

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Cheers, Rachel 😊

rburrows.bsky.social•1 day ago

Feel like I’m cheating you with a short comment when yours are so beautiful and observant. But it was glorious!
Used up all my words writing reports! 😊

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Not at all 🤣 I’m thrilled with glorious and I can hear your laughter 😜 Oh god, reports 😩 (I just managed to catch out autocorrect which preferred ‘teapots’ 🙈 - a surreal substitution which you would have appreciated). But I feel for you, I really do! 😁

rburrows.bsky.social•1 day ago

I’m so glad you can hear my laughter! That’s wonderful!

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

😜😊 🫖

sueimnw.bsky.social•2 days ago

And I thought my school was bad! 😂

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

🤣🤣🤣 Liz and I (and a few other delinquents) often laugh about Sister St John and her war cry - “You smell of the devil” but who knows what damage she did to more sensitive vulnerable children. The rumour was, she was taken to a home for mad nuns where no doubt she could exploit her olfactory prowess

sueimnw.bsky.social•2 days ago

😂

janpsolivagant.bsky.social•1 day ago

😂😂 I can just picture Father Jack Hackett's response on meeting her: "Feck! Nuns! Reverse! Reverse!"

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

🤣🤣🤣

davidbirch.bsky.social•1 day ago

My goodness, what an ending (and brilliant build-up to it). A horrifying magnification of so many teacher/pupil interactions

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thank you, David 😊

owlnsquirrels1111.bsky.social•2 days ago

I love how you bring about a grave matter with such lightness. So effective! And some of the lines are wonderful… “thought about The Four Last Things. Or didn't. (Sin of Omission).”
“…seeking sins that weren't the Seven Deadlies. There are lots! …” and a great punch line of an ending!

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thank you 🙏 Delighted you enjoyed it. We were well versed in sin 🤣 but the incongruity of expecting 8 year olds to meditate on the Four Last Things is complete craziness! She was a monster (apologies to monsters) and some people were terrified in case they got the responses wrong! Not us, though 😈

owlnsquirrels1111.bsky.social•2 days ago

You’re quite welcome! That’s taught to 8y.o. girls?! 😳🙄
Oh, that’s not the type of monster I’m find of. Good you got back at her! 😈

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Well, we got catechism every day in primary school but not with Sister St John (that was only for a couple of terms and she was a very different type of monster) and definitely not as much about sin 🤣 I’m going back a long time and I’m quite sure things are very different now.

owlnsquirrels1111.bsky.social•2 days ago

Glad that they are different! Such things can have a lasting impact.

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

I’m afraid in my case the impact was irreverent hilarity but, on a serious note, yes - for some people it really will have done, especially those who broke down in tears when they got a response and bore the savage denunciation that followed.

fiftywords.bsky.social•1 day ago

Missed this yesterday, very incisive, sin as spectacle, pedagogy as punishment, the catechism re-enacted as a theatre of repression. Knowledge here is not illumination but indoctrination: Pavlovian obedience, rhetorical violence.

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thank you very much for your generous response - much appreciated 😊

hool415.bsky.social•2 days ago

Cold, myopic eyes… I can understand how this nun still sears and s recalled in such vivid detail. There is all the oppression and awfulness of religion here but a deftness too, with such a nimble and funny ending. Loved it!

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thank you, Ju 😊 She certainly made an impact but not the one she aimed for! We still laugh about her but she succeeded in terrifying a lot of people. I suspect nobody else had asked that question but here’s the thing - how did she know the answer? 🤣

hool415.bsky.social•1 day ago

Sorry for another tardy response but very glad for the poem’s sake that she was so well remembered!

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

She’s a most unlikely subject but when I saw #ItsaSin, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity 😆

poetryman1.bsky.social•2 days ago

Wow, Carolyn- that scared me-let alone you! So vividly written!😳👍

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thanks, Gary 😊 Thrilled you enjoyed it. She certainly scared the hell out of most of my class but a few of us were beyond redemption and found her verbal outbursts hilarious. Having said that, her response that day was something else - I doubt she ever moved as quickly 🤣

poetryman1.bsky.social•1 day ago

That must have been some sight!!😀

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Oh yeah! 🤣 Unforgettable 😆

poetryman1.bsky.social•1 day ago

😳😳!

janpsolivagant.bsky.social•1 day ago

Both hilarious & utterly terrifying! Cracking lines here, among them "flaccid features now fiery red" & "desks discarded into flotsam." In '86 I had a god-bothering nutjob maths teacher (not a nun) who once bawled "IRRELEVANCE IS A SIN." Since then, I can't decide whether it's mortal or venial. 🤔

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

🤣🤣🤣 there’s bound to be a spot for it in the hierarchy of sins😆 Thank you so much, Jan. I’m delighted you enjoyed it

janpsolivagant.bsky.social•1 day ago

Most welcome! Gave me a good laugh. There's also a suggestion in the poem that you're experimental subjects in some gruesome laboratory: Pavlovian dogs & the slicing open of venial transgressions etc.

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Ooh - thank you! I hadn’t thought of that but I’ll definitely take it 😊

thepaulconnolly.bsky.social•2 days ago

Ah, I remember a teacher using the odious expression in your last line - which brilliantly bends this reflection on sin into the Pride theme. Right from the start: ‘Vulturous’ - & there she is, crabbed, despotic, anatomising even ‘venial transgressions’. Bored kids seeking naughty bits. Punished for

thepaulconnolly.bsky.social•2 days ago

diabolism by a woman whose red face suggests her own hellish origins and destiny. This is absolutely tremendous.

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thank you so much 🙏 I really appreciate it 😊 She was, in fact, removed after she sent one of my pals out to stand in the snow as punishment

thepaulconnolly.bsky.social•2 days ago

We were nastily beaten at times. I recall a boy being kicked in the back by an irate teacher. One Christian Brother was however such a poor aim with the strap he would hit himself. A physics teacher patented ‘crucifixion’, kneeling on a window pole with a text book held in each hand at arm’s length

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

And the craziness of getting kids the age of 8 to sit in silence thinking about the 4 Last Things 🙄 Complete madness!

thepaulconnolly.bsky.social•2 days ago

Our primary school head - father of a future Tory cabinet minister - used to relish describing martyrdoms of English saints, especially Margaret Clitherow. Over the years he got more graphic. By the time I’d left & my younger brothers were at the school, at least 2 kids would faint during his speech

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

The Christian Brothers were notorious for doing ‘God’s will’ 🤬 Sheer sadism, although I like the idea of the monster with the strap hitting himself). I think in that respect we got off lightly although that nun liberally used the ruler (another reason she was removed)

thepaulconnolly.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yes, they beat us till we understood that God is love 😂

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Except on this occasion we didn’t know just how naughty it was - I mean, the other three you could work out. But her reaction!!! Just as well we weren’t sensitive little souls although by that time just about everyone in class - even the good girls - had learned they stunk of the devil

thepaulconnolly.bsky.social•2 days ago

I also enjoyed here that suggestion of transgression relished. Like the first time one looks up naughty words in the dictionary. & the associated hysteria. Not confined to the kids. My first Latin teacher (a Christian Brother) couldn’t get past the number 6 (sex) without becoming a giggling imbecile

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

I’m really pleased I managed to get that across - thank you so much, Paul

rayhourigan.bsky.social•2 days ago

Reminded me of the stories my folks would tell me of their school days.. even myself, as I went to a Christian Brothers School back home, all the teachers had these black archaic robes and every lesson filled with underlying religious propaganda 🙄 apart from the younger ones.

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thanks, Ray. The Christian Brothers were notorious! I have to admit she was exceptional - we did get a certain amount of propaganda from others but she was completely crazy and I’m sure damaged some kids, less delinquent than our little gang, irreparably

rayhourigan.bsky.social•2 days ago

Not the most pleasant environment, but character-building, if nothing else 😅🙏✌️

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

That’s a very positive way to think of it 😊

shadesofgreen.bsky.social•2 days ago

This is brilliant! The oppression is palpable and has so much impact through a lens of innocence.

carolynthomas.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thank you so much 🙏 It’s really appreciated 😊

paulrapley.bsky.social•1 day ago

Ha! Ha! Ha! (a poor facsimile of my laughing out loud at this)
Takes me right back - hunting through stuff to find something correct yet offensive.
Great development.
Perfect delivery of the punchline!

carolynthomas.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thanks very much, Paul 😊 I’m thrilled you enjoyed it (and that you share my dark sense of humour 😜)