Here's a poem about someone remembering a teacher, an elementary teacher, apparently. Ana loves, loves, loves this one. It took her a session with Matt, reading it together, to fully understand it. She wasn't up on "linking verbs" or "predicate nouns," she knew none of the songs (but she does now), and she had never heard the word "goober" used to refer to peanuts. (Her son occasionally uses it to address his sister--that's the "goober" she was familiar with.) Once those details became clear she loved the collection of child-like memories.
She picked up on the change of tone at the end right away, although Matt had to help her with the meaning of "a man of a different stripe." She liked the idea that the speaker, despite being looked down on by her community nevertheless carries on regardless, because that's what courageous people do--on her world as well as ours.
It might be interesting to ask Ana what similar things she remembers about a teacher of hers.
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"What She Taught Me," by Marjorie Saiser (Oops: target page taken down; please see Workaround. It works!)
See more of Ana's favorite poems in the right column under the photo of the LOVE sculpture-->
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