The speaker discusses their experience in a preparatory school, particularly focusing on a poetry class taught by a teacher named Mr. Poe. The class was seen as somewhat useless, and the teacher appeared constantly tired and sad. Mr. Poe liked sharing lateral thinking puzzles, but their solutions often seemed unsatisfactory. The speaker also mentions their inability to decipher one of Mr. Poe's riddles and expresses gratitude for the class despite its challenges.
Here are the key facts extracted from the provided text:
1. The author attended a preparatory school in ninth grade, which was described as relatively worse than a normal public school.
2. The author and their twin sister attended the preparatory school because their older brother was already attending, and it was convenient for their carpool.
3. The preparatory school had a significant amount of homework compared to a public high school.
4. The author's poetry teacher, Mr. Poe, was perceived as depressed and often seemed sad.
5. Mr. Poe had a fascination with snakes, particularly anacondas.
6. In the poetry class, students spent days analyzing poems and believed that every word in a poem was important.
7. Mr. Poe often told lateral thinking puzzles to the class, with unusual and sometimes nonsensical answers.
8. The author tried to find the answer to one of Mr. Poe's lateral thinking puzzles on the internet but couldn't.
9. The author shared a possible answer to one of the lateral thinking puzzles: "Anyone can dig a ditch, but it takes a real man to hide the body."
10. Despite finding poetry class to be dumb, the author mentioned that they learned how to write haikus.
These facts provide an overview of the author's experience in the preparatory school and their interactions with Mr. Poe, the poetry teacher.