My twelfth grade teacher was a devout Catholic named Mr. Giglio. When I asked him if he would read some of the poems I’d been writing, he said yes. I only remember one of the poems I gave him, though, In rhymed couplets, of which I was quite proud, it imagined a post-nuclear-holocaust dystopian future and ended by passing judgment on God for having let such a thing happen.Mr. Giglio’s response was to tell me, “I think you should stop writing poems and focus on writing critical essays like what we’re doing in class. That’s what you’re good at.” When I asked him to explain why, he wouldn’t tell me. “I’ve said what I have to say” was as much as I got out of him, and that’s when I realized two things. First, his response had nothing to do with the quality of my writing; what I had written about had offended his religious sensibilities; and, second, that if my poem had disturbed him deeply enough that he felt it necessary talk me out of writing more, then I must be doing something right.
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