When younger, I was an ardent lover of movies, of cinema. From Cocteau to Kurosawa, Keaton to Kubrick, watching a great film was a near religious experience. Images and words…
Scholastic book order day in Mrs. Rader’s sixth-grade English class was my favorite. Once, I thumbed through the newsprint leaflet and selected a poetry anthology called Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle.
I entered teaching as a writer, and remain one. I had spent 10 years as a journalist and the habits of writing every single day stuck with me even as I changed careers.
The words stream through my mind; enveloping me in rich, voluptuous warmth. Deep in my chest, I feel the tender acquiescence to an irresistible force. I wallow in these lines. And I one-hundred-percent reject them…
In Lynn Ungar’s poem, “In the Moment,” there is a gentle, almost chiding, call for us to step back from railing that “everything has gone off script” (which is both futile and exhausting), and instead “play the scene you’re in.”