mentor salut

Mentor I don't think I ever really have felt that I had a mentor but the closest I would say I got was my sophomore English teacher who saved my life by encouraging me to write the good poems I did write back then -- she sat with me in the preppy Collegiate hallway where boys walked by to talk to more boy-approved girls, while we discussed Baudelaire, Frost, Keats, my poem about my parents awful marriage that I wrote at age 15. She encouraged me to feel and I had a big mess of a family that I was dealing with (but had blocked out the worst of it which came thru in metaphors)--and thus encouraged me to heal, thru the poetic form. Thank you always, Mrs. Jody Lewis, with your thesis in Faulkner and your support of my creative gifts.