“To Teachers Who Hope to Inspire Their Students” (and other poems by Felicia Nimue Ackerman)
The following is a guest post* of poems by Felicia Nimue Ackerman, professor of philosophy at Brown University.
To Teachers Who Hope to Inspire Their Students
I never had a teacher more inspiring than Ms. Burr.
She led me to resolve that I would never be like her.
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To Those Who Think the Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living
Lloyd always acts without thinking.
Reflection is hardly for him.
Lillian’s mind has been shrinking.
Dementia is making her dim.
Both find enjoyment in living.
So don’t be so ready to scoff.
Why are you so unforgiving?
How harsh to be writing them off.
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To Cynthia Ozick**
Aesthetics and logic,
Injustice and war:
Philosophers ponder
These topics and more.
We needn’t relinquish
This varying focus.
Our field would be meager
With only one locus.
**The novelist and essayist Cynthia Ozick says, “Novelists, poets, philosophers and theologians agree: Mortality, that relentless law of universal carnage, is the sole worthy human preoccupation.”
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