An Ode to EB White

Classes have fired back up and I have ten students in my World Lit. & Writing class this year.

I don’t always follow through on this ideal, but I try to do assignments with my students from time to time. (Not the research papers or critical analysis papers – come on, you guys, I already served my time and paid my dues.)

Last week I showed them a famous portrait of E.B. White by Jill Krementz – the wonderful author who brought us Charlotte’s Web, among other enduring classics. Then I assigned them the task of writing an ode to Mr. White, sitting there in his simple space, trying to generate magic for the rest of us.

I challenged myself to study the image and to write an ode myself.

And here it is ….

Dear Mr. White.

Isn’t that all we need?
A view.
Quiet space.
And a way to put words to paper.

I want to say,
“Writers like us,”
but that feels presumptuous,
to put myself in your category.
A writer like you.
Creator of treasured children’s stories.
Of a mouse who can drive a car
and a swan without words
and a spider who sets the standard for sacrificial friendship.

But then,
regardless of which words and webs
our separate pens produce,

we all start in the same space.

Blank paper.
pause.
Open minds.

So then,

our stories
are born
of the same stuff,

in one way
or another.

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