An Origin Story

Fifth grade, ten years old:
The English assignment, write a story,
A very short one to be sure.

I made up a story about camping,
Which I’d never done, and a terrible
Fright my first-person character had
When I opened my knapsack to find

A pair of eyes glaring out at me,
A creature in my few belongings!
Would it bite? It looked so evil!
I dropped the bag in fright and called out!

But then I realized, I had a little mirror
In my knapsack. Those were my eyes!

The class and teacher liked my story
So much she said maybe I should be
A writer someday. Though a voracious reader,
This thought was new to me, and it stuck.

The next year, I wrote and directed
My first play, a skit for the talent show
About the game show cheating scandal,
And that also went over very well.

But social satire was a diversion.
The longer-term project has turned out
To be looking into my own eyes
And learning not to be frightened.

*

William Considine was born and raised in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. As a scholarship
and work-study student, he graduated “With Great Distinction” from Stanford and cum
laude from Harvard Law School. He was first encouraged to write poems by Diane
Middlebrook and first studied writing poetry with Elizabeth Bishop. He worked as a
lecturer in law, an administrative law judge, an arbitrator, and in senior positions in a
New York City government agency and in a nonprofit organization for dispute resolution.
He writes poems and plays. Five of his books are available online, including his
latest, The Mysteries, from Spuyten Duyvil.