When I was 10 years old, my teacher got us to imagine our future. I drew a timeline of the rest of my life. I had just started playing football, so I drew pictures of me as a professional footballer.

It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change!

I remember when I was at Brandeis, Geoffrey Wolff, he was a great fiction-writing teacher. He was the writer-in-residence, and for those of us who wanted to be writers, you were so excited to be in the same hallway as him.

Teacher Quotes