Hate That Cat

Miss Stretchberry is Jack’s teacher for the second year in a row. She never speaks in the novel and her messages to Jack are never included; yet all of Jack’s messages are directed to her, and they often allude to conversations that she and Jack have had. While they mostly discuss writing, she also encourages him to explore his emotions and open himself up to experiences. At times, Miss Stretchberry makes suggestions about writing topics, such as when Jack says, “No, I can’t write any more / about my dog Sky” (5), or “No I cannot write / about my mother” (35), as though he is answering a question she has put to him. At other times, she prompts Jack to get him to think more deeply about his writing choices, such as when he writes, “Go on? / Tell why that chair / is like a pleasingly plump momma?” (65). She also praises his work, which prompts him to say, “And / thank you for saying / I am a genius” (56). Jack’s responses to her words indicate that she is nurturing, empathetic, and respectful, in addition to being an excellent teacher. Jack is willing to write about topics that are painful or difficult for him because Miss Stretchberry asks him to. She explains to her students that it is their ideas that are most important in their writing, rather than focusing on technicalities like figures of speech; this spurs their creativity as well as their confidence.

Her last name—Stretchberry—is unusual, and it points to her qualities as a teacher. She stretches her students’ minds and talents, engaging with them individually and as a class, gently pushing Jack beyond his comfort zone while still respecting his boundaries. She treats her students’ writing with the same degree of seriousness as the work of Williams, Poe, or Tennyson, asking students to read their work with the same attention with which they read the work of well-known poets. This method sends the implicit message that her students’ work and they, themselves, are as important as the famous works they read and the famous people who wrote them. Miss Stretchberry stretches her pupils as students and as people; with her as his teacher, Jack’s confidence and abilities grow. The second part of her name—“berry”— is a fruit, which can also mean “result” or “reward,” usually of hard work. Thus, Miss Stretchberry’s name shows that she lovingly pushes her students to learn and explore, and her work produces wonderful results.

Jack’s mother is deaf, though he does not reveal this right away in his poems and notes. He first mentions her when he explains that Uncle Bill wants him to write longer lines but that his mother likes the short lines Jack writes. He describes the way his mother “runs her fingers / down them / and then / taps / her lips / once, twice” (10). The fact that she likes the way Jack chooses to express himself, instead of insisting on arbitrary “rules” about poetry, characterizes her as being more like Miss Stretchberry than Uncle Bill. In his work, Jack begins to ponder the way his mother experiences the world even before he reveals that it’s her he’s thinking about. For example, he asks Miss Stretchberry: “if you cannot hear / do words have no sounds / in your head?” (16), and he wonders if a person who is deaf experiences thoughts like they are watching a silent movie. By the time Jack tells Miss Stretchberry that it would be impossible to write about his mother, Jack has already written about her several times, suggesting that he is using poetry to work through his uncertainty regarding some aspects of her experience. When Jack learns about types of sounds and sound repetition, he becomes much more aware that the way he experiences the world is different from the way his mother must. He seeks to understand how she engages with the world without sound, and he works through some of his questions in writing, becoming especially fixated on how his mother communicates silently and how that must impact her thoughts—just as the repetition of sound impacts his own.

Through considering his mother’s experience of the world, Jack contemplates how it is possible to interact with the world in a manner different from his own . He clearly tries to engage with his mother and involves her in his study of poetry by reading aloud to her while tapping the poem’s rhythm. She obviously enjoys these interactions, as she asks him to read again while she taps. She is loving, understanding, and patient. Jack’s ability to communicate with her gives him confidence and pleasure, such as when he interprets for her at his school and he says, “when I saw my mother’s face / it felt good to me” (123). She comes to school and participates in the school function, and it seems to be the first time she has done so because Jack can now interpret for her. This leads to his final poem, in which he promises to “hear / all the sounds / in the / world” for her, writing them down so that she “can / hear / them / too” (125). Pondering their differences, attempting to empathize with and understand how his mother perceives the world, and recognizing how they can both “paint words”—she with her hands and he with descriptive images—gives Jack confidence as a writer and as a person.