Julia Alvarez

It just, something stirs in me.

Like it's touched bottom in something.

And I almost don't want to name it.

Well, I think that, I mean, she's placed me so much in that era with a tetherball and, you know, copying letters.

I mean, we didn't discuss things.

We memorized things and copied and echoed.

And, you know, there were these figures that were teachers that maybe we're ambivalent about or maybe...

They heard us, but we didn't know any better.

I mean, there were maybe sometimes, you know, popular teachers or legendary or whatever, and they were outsized.

We didn't know that we could not like them or, you know, they had all the power for one thing, you know.

That is wonderful that you point out that versus copying, she is now writing her own poem.

Oh, I think she really believes that in that moment.

She has been colonized by Mrs. Lawrence.

She's convinced that she did something wrong.

I mean, it just happened.

I didn't mean, I didn't want this to happen.

I wasn't really looking.

But the poem proves she was really looking at everything.

So I don't buy that as a reader.

But I think in the moment, she didn't believe that she was really looking or looking the right way that she was supposed to.