Ms. Emily Moore, I adore you.

I've had the pleasure of being taught (twice) by poet Emily Moore at Stuyvesant. A graduate of both Phillips Academy and Princeton who is now teaching high school English, she's definitely helped me to discover my own style of poetry. "Perhaps you should stick to all lowercase, like Frances Chung?" she suggested one afternoon. You will notice that most of my work is now in lowercase, and many are dated from when I first started writing poems in her class in 2003.

My compilation of Ms. Moore-related-news-and-anecdotes:

From her article in NewsWeek, Why Teachers Are Not 'Those Who Can't', a must-read for any aspiring teacher:

"I feel extraordinarily blessed to have been called to a profession in which I am always learning. It is grueling, exciting, gratifying work. As a student teacher in New Jersey last fall, I looked out at my high-school students and saw a field of possibilities. I looked at their clunky boots and spiked hair and adored them.

Naturally, there were downsides. On bad days, I felt I was preaching to a swarm of gnats. Yet as wretched as my students could be, it's been far more distressing to be told by adults that I have wasted my degree."

From her final review of my poetry portfolio:

"Jasmin, you truly see life with the eyes of a writer."

Whenever I feel that I am producing absolute garbage, this sentence never fails to remind me that someone I look up to believes in me. It really meant a lot to me as my parents (wonderful as they are, Alhamdulillah) didn't encourage my writing while I was growing up.

Ms. Moore is in a band now?
Yes. And it is called Menage A Twang, "country twang meets the urban real estate market."

Lastly, her amazing piece in The New Yorker:

Auld Lang Syne by Emily Moore

I last saw her in Soho a couple of years ago- I hope that I can pay her a visit in the near future and share my thesis portfolio from college with her :-)

Photo is from the Stuy Spectator.