Thorough & Efficient: A Poem Sequence

by Peter E. Murphy

In Thorough & Efficient, Peter E. Murphy gives us a real depiction of the malaise of so-called "inner city" education. Murphy, who taught for 29 years at Atlantic City High School, is relentlessly accurate and often funny as he renders one indelible moment after another. In doing so he replaces the Hollywood script of the "hero" teacher, sacrificing everything so the orchestra can rise at the incipient miracle, with the realities of violence, indifference, intractable corruption, and everyday effort, skill, and decency. If there's any heroism here, it is that Murphy never romanticizes his job or his students, which is probably why he lasted so long.

30 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2008

About the author

Peter E. Murphy was born in Wales and grew up in New York where he managed a night club, operated heavy equipment and drove a taxi. He has been awarded six creative writing fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, which might be a record, as well as multiple residencies at Yaddo, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Millay Colony and other artist retreats. He has published a dozen books and chapbooks of nonfiction and poetry including A Tipsy Fairy Tale: A Coming of Age Memoir of Alcohol and Redemption, now out from Toplight Books.

Reviews

[Steve Peacock · Rating 4 out of 5]

A superb read; even if you do not read it from the perspective of a first-year teacher in a new Jersey ghetto -- as I did -- you shall enjoy Murphy's work.