Why Art Taped to the Windows of Elementary Schools Always Faces Outward

entering the hoary hall, climbing spidery marble steps
past eight rigid columns,
walking softly and reverently, holding her breath.
opening the door - there - to her right, the hinges
oiled so that no sound startles the august ire
of the inhabitants, and there,

every inch, spines indistinguishable, pressed so
closely they peek over each others' shoulders
seeking inspiration, fanning like cards around circular
tables, piled on creaking sideboards, encased in leather, some
hand-stitched, or in grey-green leather with gold lettering,
all perhaps stood - here - at one

time, clutching slim volumes, fabric-bound,
hand stitched, hiding un-creased stiff pages,
cream so as not to glare, buffeted and coaxed
and here! - in surprise, it hardly seems that
Frost or Keats would have gazed down on this
hidden pendaflex folder, green and frazzled, torn and terrible,

dangling from two sagging wires, shamed and bedraggled
from years of inhaling and exhaling, upon which
someone has ball-pointed "Entries here. Good luck."
Setting down her slim volume (fabric-bound,
hand stitched, hiding un-creased stiff pages
cream so as not to glare, buffeted and coaxed), she pens a polite note:

"Dear Kindest Sirs and Madamesses: Inside, please find stick-figure astronauts, and harlequin-furred puppies
and sisters wearing wavy dancing dresses beneath inverted magical trees. These are christmasy cloud-castles
and mothers wearing riotous heart-aprons, dancing with fathers in Herman Munster shoes, whose knees do not
bend, smiling full half-circle smiles. These are the leftist radical crayoners, putting pink and purple together when everyone knows they shouldn't ever be, these are green whales and blue elephants and big box houses with
orange curtains, windows with gigantic crosses that slip the bonds of their frames to pierce the neighbors'
gardens, these are horses with giraffe legs, eye to eye and in love with the moon and red haired girls with
magenta slinkies bursting joyously out of their heads, these are navy blue skies and tangerine mountains!
how can you not see how lucky you are!"


smoothing the crumpled face of the sagging old folder
brushing it free of imaginary specks of white-glove dust,
unburdened, she solemnly straightens the staple gallery.


Published 2005 University of Michigan Portfolio
This was written after I submitted a collection of entries in the Hopwood Room - a room in Angell Hall used to collect entries for the Hopwood Award, a creative writing award considered to be highly prestigious.  Trust me - I did not expect to win anything. I was surprised, however, by the dead silence which met the submission - and I'm sure I wasn't alone at being completely ignored afterwards.

Those people who empty that pitiful pendaflex folder in the Hopwood Room literally have no idea how lucky they are, to be entrusted with those submissions ... even kindergarden teachers have the brains to respect the creativity of their charges; the Hopwood Award reviewers at the University of Michigan are arrogant, rude and pitiful.   A simple "Thank you for entrusting us with your creative work" would have been suitable for what they were charged to do; they couldn't even manage that. The University of Michigan literary whizbangs really need to be replaced with a better and more respectful breed of people.