In A Nutshell XLV

In a Nutshell

A place set aside to answer 201 autobiographical questions
from a mother for her daughter. This may take awhile...join us if you like.

45. I liked this subject a lot in junior high or high school:

I loved all of my literature classes. Being assigned to read fiction instead of a text book was right up my alley. Being able to write things myself and have my teachers appreciate it was also a lot of fun.

In American Lit, with Mr. Marconi, I was able to choose my favorite American author for one of my term papers and explored James Thurber. We also wrote a short story, which was fun. In studying short stories we explored all of the factors that go into fiction and I began to see why I liked particular writers more than others -- for one thing, I discovered that I appreciate local color. When I read something, I want it to feel like only one place on earth. If it could happen anywhere, if you can't tell where it takes place, I am quickly bored.

In senior year we had English Lit, with a lovely woman teacher whose name I've forgotten. One of our assignments was to write poems for the six weeks that we studied them. My first poems were long and convoluted with references to Mayan gods no one had heard of. My teacher assigned me to write nothing but Haiku for the rest of the quarter. It was a hard lesson, but it was one of the better ones I ever had. It was in that class that I wrote my favorite Haiku, one which the teacher simply read aloud as an example to the class of what they should be without reading it first because she saw my name on it. How was I to know she would do that?

A cat with kittens
All scampering before her
Regrets brief pleasures.