About

Sing to me of the teacher, Muse, the woman charged with leading frustrated writers who think teaching means preparing students to major in English like they did.

Sing of the balance she strikes between teaching and living with her husband, Steve, and two children at home and one out of the nest and far away.

Imagine her writing lesson plans with essential questions and connections to the world outside her classroom.

See her classroom writers engaged in workshops,

Writing, revising, reading, revising, editing.

Sing of her weekends spent reading and listening to books while she makes soap in the kitchen.

Sing of her long autumn walks among maples and oaks

And many cups of coffee and tea.

Sing of her winters with ten feet of snow

and snow days watching the world

hidden under thick white blankets

Sing of her spring that comes much too late

and stays too briefly

before rolling into her summer full of workshops and learning and happy surprises.

Sing of Mrs. Huff, Muse, as the wheel of the year turns once more

and a new September brings a new group of writers to her classroom.

At the Kenyon Writer’s Workshop for Teachers in summer of 2015, I wrote this poem by way of introduction, and it serves as well as any other.