Many years ago my dear friend Robin told me about Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing. He quoted a particular passage he loved and thought I would too. He was right. I set it down here to share it with you and to save it for myself:
What about the student who is not good? Who will never write much? It is possible for a good teacher to get from that student one poem or one story that far exceeds whatever hopes the student had. It may be of no importance to the world of high culture, but it may be very important to the student. It is a small thing, but it is also small and wrong to forget or ignore lives that can use a single microscopic moment of personal triumph. Just once the kid with bad eyes hits a home run in an obscure sandlot game. You may ridicule the affectionate way he takes that day through a life drab enough to need it, but please stay the hell away from me.
Great quote, Gardo! We get so hung up on The Big Achievement that we lose track of the need for everyone to have their own milestone achievements, even if they aren’t world class. I still remember my first base hit – I really (really) sucked at baseball as a kid. It was the last game of the season, my last time to bat. I managed a weak base hit, but it was my first one ever. The families watching the game went wild. It was awesome. And yet entirely mediocre by anyone else’s standards.