College Poem Accepted, and a Review

Mug my violinist friend made for me. Taken by me.

A few weeks ago, when looking through a drawer of old stuff, I came upon some writing I did in college. A poem struck me as tolerably good, so I submitted it, and it has now been accepted by Right Hand Pointing. I was probably eighteen at the time I wrote it, which means it is from 1983! Talk about evergreen content.

The poem is Asian-inspired, in more ways than one. When I was growing up, my friend’s mother translated Chinese poetry, and I was interested by it. And at the time I wrote the poem, I was taken with a Chinese violin student at Oberlin. We were never more than friends, but I enjoyed his company, learned from his teaching–he would burst into my practice room and help me phrase better–and appreciated the mug he made for me, shown above. My poem uses the mug as a metaphor for how I felt about him.

The mug still makes me happy when I look at it, and the prospect of sharing the poem is a joy.

And now, for something completely different, a review:

More amazing Holocaust references here. Also, I note similarities between my life and work and those of Russell T Davies that in no way mean I think I am equally talented–they just struck me.