23. March 27, 2021

When Bar­bara arrives at Marie Ducham­p’s Vic­to­ri­an house on Ridge Road, she finds Marie and Olivia in a tense con­ver­sa­tion. Olivia attempts to apol­o­gize for an action she regrets, regard­ing sub­mit­ting Bar­bara’s poems to the Pen­ley Prize for Younger Poets—a pres­ti­gious award spon­sored by New York’s Big Five publishers—without Bar­bara’s knowl­edge or con­sent. Bar­bara, though ini­tial­ly con­fused and unaware of the prize, is sur­prised but not angered by their ini­tia­tive.

Olivia express­es guilt for sub­mit­ting Bar­bara’s poems and fears Bar­bara’s reac­tion. Bar­bara learns that her work, which she shared with Olivia out of a shared pas­sion for poet­ry, has been list­ed among the nine­ty-five final­ists for the Pen­ley Prize. This unex­pect­ed acknowl­edg­ment of her tal­ent con­fronts Bar­bara with a choice: to sub­mit more poems for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion or not. The prize offers not only a sig­nif­i­cant mon­e­tary reward but also the oppor­tu­ni­ty for the win­ner’s poet­ry to be pub­lished by a major pub­lish­ing house.

Amidst this rev­e­la­tion, the dis­cus­sions piv­ot to Bar­bara’s per­son­al reflec­tions on her craft, its secre­tive nature, and her desire not to over­shad­ow her brother’s achieve­ments in lit­er­a­ture. Bar­bara decides to pur­sue the oppor­tu­ni­ty, request­ing Olivi­a’s help in select­ing poems for sub­mis­sion while insist­ing on keep­ing their efforts con­fi­den­tial to avoid famil­ial ten­sion.

The chap­ter clos­es with a moment of cama­raderie among Bar­bara, Marie, and Olivia, shar­ing in the cel­e­bra­to­ry albeit secret toast, sym­bol­iz­ing their friend­ship and mutu­al sup­port. Olivia, rec­og­niz­ing Bar­bara’s tal­ent and poten­tial, advis­es her to broad­en her lit­er­ary hori­zons by explor­ing works beyond poet­ry, sug­gest­ing authors and nov­els that might enrich her under­stand­ing and expres­sion, fur­ther cement­ing their men­tor-stu­dent rela­tion­ship.