All's Right With the World

 One of the gifts of my youth was from the very old and out of date English teacher I had in high school.  Miss Reid was the same teacher who taught my own father.  She proudly never took another class after she graduated college.  I never learned to write or to critique or any of the more modern things one could learn in high school English. I can only imagine what those might be.

The gift that Miss Reid gave me was the requirement to memorize poetry.  It was terrible teaching and most kids didn't get anything out of spending nearly an entire semester of junior English memorizing and writing out poems from memory. I really didn't think I got anything from it.  I hated it. I felt cheated when I got to college and everybody else knew how to write an essay and I hadn't a clue how to do that.  I learned fast.

But, the reason I say that Miss Reid gave me a gift is this--often as I go about my life a line a poetry that I memorized in high school will come to me. Often times I can't remember the complete poem.  But, in this internet age I remember enough to find the poem on line.  The title of this post--"All's right with the world" comes from Robert Browning's Pippas Passes.

I don't suppose anyone really memorizes much poetry these days.  The call to stand up and recite a poem in unknown in this day and age with so many screens and diversions. I am not volunteering to perform one.  But, the little verses that pop into my mind from long ago days enrich my life. Miss Reid, a belated thanks for the memory.