It's that point in the semester when the freshmen comp essays are stacked high, and I feel surrounded by a flood of papers. As I grade, the metaphor of a mountain seems fitting. The climbing can get steep, but some of the views are spectacular.
Who taught me to write? My parents, by reading to me so much as a child, by telling me stories, Sister Elizabeth Keough, my 6th grade teacher, who made writing fun, Chet Chilinski, my high school creative writing teacher who advised the literary magazine, The Talisman, where my first poems were published. On and on, all those teachers who patiently read my words, gave me feedback. I stand on their shoulders. I try to pass it on, "the chain letter of the soul," as Minnesota writer and a former colleague Bill Holm wrote.
Who taught me to write? My parents, by reading to me so much as a child, by telling me stories, Sister Elizabeth Keough, my 6th grade teacher, who made writing fun, Chet Chilinski, my high school creative writing teacher who advised the literary magazine, The Talisman, where my first poems were published. On and on, all those teachers who patiently read my words, gave me feedback. I stand on their shoulders. I try to pass it on, "the chain letter of the soul," as Minnesota writer and a former colleague Bill Holm wrote.
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