19. February 12, 2021

Bar­bara Robin­son, brav­ing the bit­ter cold in her red win­ter attire, ner­vous­ly approach­es 70 Ridge Road, the res­i­dence of her idol, Olivia Kings­bury, a ven­er­at­ed Amer­i­can poet with ties to T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Con­trast­ing her youth­ful inex­pe­ri­ence with the lega­cy of Kings­bury, Bar­bara is fraught with self-doubt about her own poet­ic ambi­tions. Yet, Olivia had invit­ed her over email after review­ing her poem – an invi­ta­tion that both hon­ored and intim­i­dat­ed Bar­bara.

Upon her arrival, Bar­bara meets Olivia, a cen­te­nar­i­an poet liv­ing in a mod­est Vic­to­ri­an home, filled with the unex­pect­ed like a large-screen TV, and fur­nished min­i­mal­ly. Olivi­a’s inter­ac­tion with her assis­tant, Marie, reveals a blend of com­mand and affec­tion, set­ting a com­fort­able tone for Barbara’s vis­it. Olivia, dis­miss­ing for­mal­i­ties, insists on equal­i­ty in their dis­course, pro­pelling Bar­bara into an unfore­seen sense of belong­ing.

Their con­ver­sa­tion mean­ders through Bar­bara’s per­son­al life before delv­ing into the essence of why she writes poet­ry. Olivia’s prob­ing ques­tions chal­lenge Bar­bara to artic­u­late the chaos and clar­i­ty that poet­ry brings to her per­cep­tion of the world. Olivia cri­tiques the aca­d­e­m­ic approach to poet­ry, encour­ag­ing Bar­bara to val­ue the organ­ic rhythm and per­son­al voice over pre­scribed for­mats.

Unex­pect­ed­ly, Olivia offers Bar­bara reg­u­lar men­tor­ship ses­sions, sig­nal­ing a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty for Bar­bara to learn from a lit­er­ary icon, far removed from the col­le­giate crit­i­cisms of Emi­ly Har­ris, anoth­er pro­fes­sor who had shown an inter­est in Barbara’s work. Olivi­a’s blunt cau­tion against the influ­ence of the Har­ris­es adds lay­ers to the aca­d­e­m­ic land­scape Bar­bara nav­i­gates, wedg­ing a dis­tinct divide between gen­uine men­tor­ship and author­i­ta­tive instruc­tion.

The clos­ing con­ver­sa­tion shifts toward race and poet­ry, where Olivia, in a poignant moment, inquires if Barbara’s poems were com­pelled to reflect “the Black expe­ri­ence” as per Emily’s inquiry. This exchange sub­tly uncov­ers the lay­ered expec­ta­tions and pres­sures on Black artists to con­form to the­mat­ic nar­ra­tives. Olivi­a’s insis­tence on hon­esty and authen­tic­i­ty under­scores the core of their emerg­ing men­tor-pro­tégé rela­tion­ship.

Through­out the vis­it, Bar­bara tran­si­tions from a trem­bling new­com­er to an inspired poet, embold­ened by Olivia’s val­i­da­tion and sup­port. This chap­ter sets the stage for a pro­found explo­ration of cre­ativ­i­ty, men­tor­ship, and iden­ti­ty, against the back­drop of gen­er­a­tional and cul­tur­al inter­sec­tions with­in the realm of Amer­i­can poet­ry.