This is what happens when you make us read a poem about boobs.

So today in British Literary History Dr. Cooper-Rompato split us into groups and made us read and report to the class on Robert Herrick's, "Upon the Nipples of Julia's Breasts". This is apparently classical literature. And while I try not to question Dr. CR's judgment I feel that maybe the boys in the class and myself are not mature enough to handle this material. In fact, all the poems we read today were about sex and this poor Julia character that has been forever immortalized as a skank through Herrick's poetry.
Unfortunately, the assignment was to read the poem to the class and explain it to them. If you actually read this poem Herrick is in no way unsubtle in his attempt at describing this woman. I mean the title is blunt enough. So then when my group got up to share what the poem was about....we had to somehow make it about the iambic tetrameter and the rhyming couplets...and not about what the boys in the back of the class were sniggering about.
The actual laughter from the class comes with Andrew Marvelle's poem, "To His Coy Mistress". This poem is about carpe diem and you're only young once...so the narrator is trying to convince the girl to sleep with him. Somewhere in the poem vegetables are mentioned. I admit this was confusing...but then a boy in my class put it very beautifully, "I ask you, what on earth is sexier than a cucumber?" This remark pretty much alleviated the tension in the class...but I still find myself missing Donne's poetry....a flea is a lot less blunt.