tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3020940928322038817.post5630639736737963742..comments2024-03-05T12:07:54.014-06:00Comments on The Butter Rum Cartoon: MOUNTAINSButter Rum Cartoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05055923045493513194noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3020940928322038817.post-79768371858949183312012-04-22T19:08:27.256-05:002012-04-22T19:08:27.256-05:00According to Mr. Prinz (actually I've since re...According to Mr. Prinz (actually I've since rediscovered it's spelled "Prins"), I'm a born prose writer, not a born poet. Thank you, though, for the encouragement!<br /> One episode is well remembered with Mr. Prins: One day he was trying to teach us in the portable classroom beside the parking lot, and a guy outside was gunning his motorcycle and bothering Mr. Prins. Finally Prins went over to the window and opened it and shouted, "Kindly take your vroom vroom elsewhere!" That line has stuck with me for forty years.Dale Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05058328213863828288noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3020940928322038817.post-82043924889376737462012-04-22T18:25:14.806-05:002012-04-22T18:25:14.806-05:00Wow. I have never heard of a sestina before, but t...Wow. I have never heard of a sestina before, but this blows me away. You wrote: "My instructor, Mr. Prinz, Wunda Wunda's husband, was of the mind that a poet is born a poet and that one could not be taught to write poetry. Yet he supposedly was teaching us to write poetry. Go figure."<br /><br />Okay, let's figure. I was a highly successful computer programmer, having never been schooled for that vocation. I watched, and competed with, other candidates who had up to four years of college training in the field, while I barely graduated from high school. I could produce cogent, working programs in circles around most of them. They came and went, moving on to other fields, while I persevered, no matter the challenge. I thus came to profess that programmers are born, not made, just as you said above about poets.<br /><br />Instructors can only show you the rules, inspire you to strive, then sit back and judge your efforts. They focus your endeavor as any good professional should, then you both either find that you have it, or you don't.<br /><br />You proved yourself to be a born poet. I proved myself to be a born programmer. Neither of us were actually taught to do it, we were only brought to flower by those who inspired us and gave us opportunity.<br /><br />Does this make sense?<br /><br />MissouriboyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com