To My English Teacher at Fordham University

You probably don't remember me, but I will always remember you. I was a student in your English 15 (Poetry) course in Spring 1972. Taking your class was one of the factors in my decision to pursue a career in teaching.

Many of us, myself included, had no special talent for understanding poetry, but that didn't matter to you. You brought a passion for poetry into the classroom each day, and it was contagious. I remember the way you used to read poems to us out of the Norton Anthology of Poetry (yes, I still have the book!) You made these poems come alive. There was one poem, called "This is just to say," that I can still recite verbatim, over 40 years later. There was another called "Do Not Read This Poem" that has also been fixed in my mind since then, because reading it is almost a sensory experience.

One day you were reading a medieval poem to us, and at the end of it you said, "This really should be sung to get the full effect." We asked you if you could sing it. You said you could, but at first declined to do it. We pleaded with you and you finally gave in and sang the poem for us. It was fantastic. You had quite a beautiful voice.

I am now a teacher myself, and I try to bring the same kind of passion into my teaching that you did into yours. I even sing a song in class once in a while. Over the years, I have often thought of you and of several other great teachers I've had in my own education. You are one of the few whom I have not been able to track down to thank personally. (The people at Fordham did try to help me.) As a last-ditch effort, I have posted this short tribute to you.

If you recognize yourself as the young female graduate assistant at Fordham University who taught English 15 to an unruly group of sophomores in Spring 1972, please accept a much-belated word of heartfelt thanks.

And to others who are reading this -- let us never forget to be grateful for the teachers who made a good impression on us when we were in school. I, for one, could write at least a dozen other tributes.

Dennis Tamburello, O.F.M.