Voices

When I was ten-years-old my cousin brought me to a movie called The Dead Poets Society. In it, the teacher, Mr. Keating, recites part of Walt Whitman's O Me! I Life! to his students. In this poem Whitman suggests that life is a "powerful play," and that we each may "contribute a verse." It took me some years to understand Whitman's meaning, but that line has resonated ever since, as has the movie - I'm a high school English teacher now - and I've been trying ever since to contribute my own verse. This is it. So please, read and enjoy, and I hope you too are inspired to contribute a verse to this, the greatest of plays, life.