Did I Miss Anything?

At the heart of “Did I Miss Anything” is a what-if question: what would have happened if the students had been present in the class they missed? The speaker attempts to answer this question in different ways, sometimes saying the opposite of what he means, and at other moments giving the sort of canned replies the students will understand. It is only towards the end of the poem that it becomes clear what exactly the students have missed. It isn’t the angelic revelation of Stanza 4 or even the exam which will be included towards their grade (Stanza 2). The “everything” the students have missed is the quality of attention. They have missed out on engaging with the particular class the teacher prepared, the exchange of ideas that took place between teacher and student, and the spirit of open, critical enquiry itself. Thus, their absence has been not just from the class but from an opportunity for growth and therefore from their own selves. The speaker’s truthful answer for everything is rooted in an ordinary, every day experience: a class in progress. The juxtaposition of the barebones “everything” with the “everything” that the angels conveyed is deliberate and proves the poem’s central theme: revelations, epiphanies, and the like don’t strike out of the blue—they occur when people are immersed in their work.