Letter to an Inspirational English Teacher

My friend Mac and I were walking through the financial district when he told me that there was a beautiful bookstore right where we were.

I was overstimulated by the finance douchebags playing cornhole as the bat-mitzvah DJ (in terms of music choice, not in terms of the age of his audience) wasted his time on bleach blonde white girls who couldn’t care less about his setlist.

We walked into the store, and climbed up the staircase into this cozy section that I can only describe as the adult version of a Barnes and Noble kiddie read-a-loud auditorium.

I’m gonna be honest, when I first saw the rows of adults listening to these three people reading a book, I tuned them out immediately.

Mac and I walked around the place, looking for books to buy when I finally decided to give the people a chance. Best choice I made that day. They were reading poems from this anthology they just wrote, and the lady in the middle read them with such an interesting voice- it was as if the air escaping her larynx was sunlight filtered by stained glass.

It had a kind of rasp that was somehow still gentle, like brushed wool against your neck on a subzero winter. Anyway, after they finished their reading, I saw the book you recommended me a couple months back.

Letters to a Young Poet, there in its glossy pink cover, clinging to the bestsellers table by a page. I meant to read it last night, but I was exhausted from the melatonin I took and hours worth of studying.

I finally read it today, and holy shit. There isn’t a cathedral dedicated to the rectum that could contain the holiness of the shit. Wow. The first letter was absolutely incredible. I felt like my concerns, regarding writing, the creative process, wanting approval from these programs and Jabberwocky, had all been shed from my skin (besides some determined hairs that still cling to my forearm).

I’m still in shock by how much your reccomendation for me to read that book was able to answer so many of my questions that I asked you months ago. Genuinely insane. Just wanted to share that.