The poem 'What Teachers Make' is not without its detractors. This one person wrote to me and said: 'Gee, Mr. Mali. You don't possibly have a teacher-God complex, do you?' And that was the first time I'd ever heard of that expression. So, yeah, I'm sure I have a teacher-God complex.

Morrissey wrote to me and said, I have a song for you and if we release it as a single, you'll be on the charts for the first time since 1972, I said, what time, where?

If you've ever been to a poetry slam, you know that the highest scoring emotion is self-righteous indignation: how dare you judge me. So in that way, the poem, 'What Teachers Make,' is an absolutely formulaic slam poem designed to allow me to get up on my soap box and say, 'Let me tell you what really makes me angry.'

Here, let me break it down for you,
so you know what I say is true:
Teachers? Teachers make a difference!
Now what about you?

From everything I have heard, this is the first time we ever beat Dover,

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.