This week, I went to Nancy* with a surprise in my bag: a book of poetry! I’ve read poems to Nancy before, and it’s been one of the ways we have bonded. However, this week, I purposefully took the poetry collection I was reading in class. One thing that I’ve gathered from my course is that poems are not just singular works of art. But rather, when they are put together in a poem, the organization of the collection and how poems are presented are very vital to the entire artwork. In other words, the parts make the whole and the presentation is of great value.
As a result, I decided taking a poetry collection and reading some of the poems might be fun. We read around 5 poems - I read aloud to Nancy. Our heads close by as we looked over the words on the pages. After the poems, she would ask me to explain her analyzation of them. I would and she would nod silently. Usually she’d make a comment like, “I really like that” or “that’s a nice way of thinking about it."
Before I left, I put a little gift into her hand. It was a small zip-lock bag of chocolates. I knew that Nancy really liked sweets, especially milk chocolate. This week, I had picked up some chocolate from the store - an assorted mix - for a club event of mine. I had lots of leftover candy, and I thought Nancy would like some. The joy in her face and she said “thanks” was so heartwarming.
*Names changed to preserve privacy
- Ellen Zhang