Sensory Details
By Todd Friedman
I saw you in the anthology, Walt,
“rude, unbending, lusty,”
and there you were
a live-oak growing
right there in the middle
of the high school classroom.
And I imagined the person
who picked your poem
laughing into his hand
and slapping his thigh!
But the best part was in the instructions
on the side of the page:
“Write about something in nature that
reminds you of yourself and your friends.
Use sensory details.”
A year later they put out a new edition
and the poem was gone.
Use sensory details.
Todd Friedman is a retired NYC high school English teacher who fought three major battles against the Department of Education. An arbitration decision is named after him and he won a New York Library Association award for standing up against censorship. His poems have been published in Jewish Currents, Tikkun, Midstream, Poetica, Jewish Literary Journal, Brooklyn Eagle, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and English Journal.
