The Favorite – Blog #5

I had a difficult time choosing which piece to advocate this time.

Carolyne Wright’s poem “This Dream The World is Having About Itself” tells a story about time passing, American-life, family, and death.

The last line struck me deeply, and lingered:

“in open fields, we would

watch the trail deepen in brilliant shadow

and dream all the decades ahead of us.”

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HOWEVER…

I find more power and depth within the words of  Alison Townsend’s “The Favorite.”

In this poem, we examine the give-and-take relationship of a student and a teacher. When a truly deep and intimate connection is made, it is inevitable that the roles will reverse at some point: The student will give the teacher the seeds of new knowledge.

But this poem is layered with valuable images of human behavior:  

**The instinctive need we feel to help the ones we relate to

**The way we live vicariously through other people and their stories

**How strength always evolves through the most difficult of experiences

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“The most beautiful room in her whole house built from the ugliest mud”

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