DANIEL ROMO / RULES: 3 FOUND POEMS
From 1915 Rules for Teachers
You will not marry in ice cream stores.
You are not to keep company with
men who dress in bright colors
between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.You must be home to smoke cigarettes and
start the fire.You may not loiter with your father or brother
or carriage or automobile.You may not travel with dye in your hair.
You may not ride the blackboards
unless attending a school function.You may not scrub the chairman of the board.
You may not warm hot water.
You may under no circumstances teach men
to wear petticoats above the ankle.You must contract clean men.
Your dresses must wear dresses.
To keep the school room neat,
you must have permission
to sweep the city.
From 1872 Rules for Teachers
Teachers will
make books
taste good.Each teacher will be worth
integrity,
honesty,
and twenty-five cents per week.Make your pens the intention
of education.Men teachers may
carefully
carefully
carefully
engage in unseemly conduct.After 10 hours in school,
teachers may use liquor each evening,
providing the Board of Education
approves.Women teachers may lay with men to whittle nibs
and get shaved in public
if they marry.Every teacher should frequent the Bible and barber shop.
Any teacher who smokes will be given good reason to.
The teacher will dismiss pupils to society
without fault.
Rules from the Georgetown Student Handbook 1919-1959
Rule 1
Freshmen will wear caps
made of the memory of the entire
sophomore class.
Rule 2
Freshmen will yield to the proper authorities
at noon and night:
evening need not be present.
Rule 3
Freshmen will not wear bow ties in the river.
Rule 4
Freshmen will be present at the annual game of
park a street car
in the river.
Rule 5
Freshmen will walk on the side of Freshmen and other Freshmen
until Sophomores.
Rule 6
Freshmen will commit infraction
the right way.
Rule 7
Freshmen when called upon will be
the President of
the Committee of
the Chairman of
the Class of
Vigilance.
Rule 8
Infraction of these rules will be Freshmen crushed to stone.
Rule 9
These rules shall be everywhere and enforced by
victorious yells
until some other rules apply.
Daniel Romo is the author of Bum Knees and Grieving Sunsets (FlowerSong Press 2023), Moonlighting as an Avalanche (Tebot Bach 2021), Apologies in Reverse (FutureCycle Press 2019), and others. He received an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, and he lives, teaches, and rides his bikes in Long Beach, CA. More at danieljromo.com.