All posts by Nichole

Reading

"The Education of a Poet"

American Life in Poetry: Column 061
By Ted Kooser,
U.S. Poet Laureate
Everywhere I travel I meet people who want to write poetry but worry that what they write won’t be “any good.” No one can judge the worth of a poem before it’s been written, and setting high standards for yourself can keep you from writing. And if you don’t write you’ll miss out on the pleasure of making something from words, of seeing your thoughts on a page. Here Leslie Monsour offers a concise snapshot of a self-censoring poet.

The Education of a Poet
Her pencil poised, she’s ready to create,
Then listens to her mind’s perverse debate
On whether what she does serves any use;
And that is all she needs for an excuse
To spend all afternoon and half the night
Enjoying poems other people write.

Leslie Monsour’s newest book of poetry is “The Alarming Beauty of the Sky” (2005) published by Red Hen Press. Poem copyright (c) 2000 by Leslie Monsour and reprinted from “The Formalist,” Vol. 11, by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Screen time

Goodbye, Bristows

I started watching “Alias” in its first season, in 2001. The year we graduated college, got married and moved to Missouri. The year I started my first “real” job. I watched the last episode tonight with some friends under a strict no talking, no mocking rule (which they violated, repeatedly) that I instituted because I know the show has been awful for at least two seasons and that it’s infinitely mockable. But I wanted to stick it out. And I’m glad I did.

My friends asked a few times during the finale if I was going to cry. I didn’t … during the show. I was glad everyone cleared out so quickly after the closing credits, which included the phrase “Thank you for an incredible five years.” It sort of brought home the fact that we’re leaving in less than two months. I’ve grown to love this place and these people so much, and it’s almost over. And there won’t be a nice, soft-focus end to our story. We’ll move, and things here will carry on. We’ll carry on.

So yes, Amy, B and Rachel, I did cry when “Alias” ended. But it wasn’t because I’m going to miss the Family Bristow. It’s because I’m going to miss you and here and this time of my life.