Never Blame the Umpire Read Free

her is hurting. “Tell her I hope she’s feeling better.”
    “I will.”
    “Did you write your poem yet?” Ginny asks.
    “Not yet. How about your monologue? Do you have it memorized?”
    “Not quite. It’s a long one. I wish you were in drama. Then we could work together.”
    “You know I’m no actress,” I tell her. “But I wish you were in creative writing.”
    She laughs. “You know I’m no poet.”
    Today was the fourth day of the first week of our three-week session of classes at the Valley Lake School for the Arts. Every June our county has fine arts classes for grades five through eight. Ginny went last year in drama. She’s a really good actress and has been in lots of plays in our town’s children’s theater. She always tells me I should audition. No way. Like I told Ginny, I’m no actress. I’ve helped her rehearse by reading lines with her. I just can’t read them like a real actress does. Not like she does. She actually becomes the character. Me, I’m just reading words. No matter how hard I try, I never get any better. She must know that, but she’s too nice to tell me.
    The school has classes in visual arts, music, dance, drama, and creative writing. The classes meet from nine o’clock until three o’clock five days aweek. Kids who want to attend have to audition and be selected by the school’s faculty.
    Last summer was awful because I didn’t get to see Ginny much for those three weeks. I didn’t audition for anything last year because I wasn’t any good in any of the arts or even interested in them.
    But this spring a visiting poet came to our school for one week and taught us about writing poetry. I never knew before how much fun it could be to write poems. He read a lot of his own, and they were easy to understand. Most of them were funny. He read a lot of good poems about sports, too. I liked those the best.
    He had us write poems ourselves. I didn’t think I’d be able to, but he showed us lots of ways to get started. He said that getting those first few words on the page is the most important thing. He had us do some activities that made it really easy to write those first words. Like “begin with a place or a time or a person or action or object. Then combine them.” And “think of a person and put the person in a certain place. Have the person doing something.” Things like that. Another one was, “Take an object, something you can actually touch. Have someone do something with that object. Add a time and place.” And he said a poem doesn’t have to rhyme. That made it easier.
    He said, “Once you get your poem started, ask ‘What next?’ or ‘What else?’ Before you know it, you have a poem.” I found out that writing a poem isn’tas hard as I thought it would be. Actually, it’s kind of fun.
    So this summer I auditioned for creative writing. And got chosen!
    In my audition, I had to submit a poem I’d written and then have an interview with the teacher. I guess that was how he determined who really deserved to be in his class. At least he could find out who wanted to be there.
    I submitted a poem I wrote about soccer.
     
Soccer Goalie
    In the closing seconds
    I crouch on coiled legs,
    wait for the corner kick.
    I spring like a leopard,
    claw autumn’s misty air,
    clutch the damp ball,
    clench it in cold hands,
    skip three steps on soggy ground,
    swing my leg into the ball’s flight
    and take a tasty bite
    of victory’s sweet fruit.
     
    In my interview, Mr. Gallagher, the teacher, really surprised me. He said my poem was “marvelous.” Hewas really impressed with my strong verbs. He said, “You captured the moment vividly.” Then he asked me about what he called “the process” of writing the poem. I told him about the poet who came to our school and told us we could start with a moment when something happened and then just add details to show what happened during that moment.
    Mr. Gallagher said, “Well, you did great. I’m impressed.”
    So