This Day 18 of my 1000-Day MFA, a DIY education project I’ve undertaken that I learned about from writer Shaunta Grimes. You can read more about how I’m engaging with it here. By the way, there often is no rhyme or reason to how I choose the poems, essays, and short stories. I just throw my net out, and gather up what comes in.
Poem: Prospective Immigrants, Please Note
by Adrienne Rich
Essay: Homage to Hugo and Antonio
by Michael Ventura
Short Story: A Lost Masterpiece
by A. A. Milne
Prospective Immigrants, Please Note
When the month of May approaches, Barnes & Noble is ready. Oh the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss starts flying off the shelves for the graduates every year. But let’s get real. Sweet as it is, that book blithely skips over real life and says, “Whee! You’re going to conquer the world before lunch tomorrow without even breaking a sweat, and everyone will love you!”
This poem tells it like it is. It is a clear-eyed, sober bow to the sheer magnitude of the moment we’re in — at every moment — and a reminder that we have choices and that our choices have consequences.
Homage to Hugo and Antonio
From Letters at 3am: Reports on Endarkenment
A loving tribute to the nature of his family, this essay tells the story of a grandfather’s reverence for effort and dignity.
A Lost Masterpiece
A. A. Milne always reawakens the one in me that thought it didn’t count. I speak a lot of languages (Mom, math, marital conversation, Twitter, Insta, FB, text, email, seduction, French, Italian, baby, gossip, piglatin, fake Chinese, neighbor, etc.). But one of my favorite languages … well, I never get to use it unless I’m reading A. A. Milne, who seems to be the only other person fluent in it. I don’t know what to call that language. Not sure it has a name. But me and A. A., we’re like this because of it. This is indeed a “masterpiece.”
Tina Lear is a writer and mother of three really interesting humans. She founded the Long Island Dharmata Shangha, and is currently navigating the liminal world between her past and her future. Doing her best to be in the present. She lives in Floral Park with her beloved wife.
