Encouragement (For my poetry teacher, Dorothea Bisbas) - June 2, 2025

We needed it as new poets

wobbling with our first steps

our teacher, Dorothea, knew

it would take time, so she

strung us along to absorb

and practice her wisdom

until we became what she

said we would become

at the end she claimed

to have taught for thirty

years - it was twenty-eight

but did anyone care to

correct her if what she

instilled in us was this:

“When someone asks what

you do, say, I am a poet

then believe it”