Issue link: http://tcnj.uberflip.com/i/1373206
32 The College of New Jersey Magazine TM: You like to capture women in history in a unique way, it seems. GC: I do. I always give them a good pass. That's where the power of the writer is. Women in history — they're a part of us. I learned poetry by reading Rudyard Kipling in the Heritage Library. I learned from white male poets because no women were published. My first love for poetry was Edna St. Vincent Millay. I have all of her first editions. In college, we ran around campus quoting Millay. TM: At TCNJ, Herman Ward, an English professor, had a big influence on you. Tell us about him. GC: Ward was a Princeton graduate and came with his tweedy thoughts, you know, with his Cambridge/Oxford attitude. He brought that to New Jersey State Teachers College and we were his protégés. He took us under his wing for four years, and he intro- duced us to the best. We knew the canon and every great author: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Flaubert. He handed me a magic baton of poetry that has lighted my life. I was always kind of in love with something that I didn't know I was in love with. I would say he presented us with the key to the door and then gave us the canon to study. It takes just one person. Herman Ward taught my soul. When you practice an art, that is the closest you are to discovering who you are. I wanted to be that person. And I am. THE LONGEST STORY IN THE WORLD For Phi Beta Kappa Induction, 2021 And for Herman Ward The longest story in the world is Transformation Sunrise to yellow Rushing waters to waterfall Seeds breaking earth Bird's beak breaking seed All in service to the earth Once 71 years ago There was a professor Who without having to say Showed us how To rinse off language Study nature's magnificence Notice everything Slow down because No one can dream in a hurry Discover others By finding out who we are Animate imagination Reread books and then write new ones Tell everyone a poem Make the world less lonely For this is the heart's motion And our deeds are all we can own Sunrise to yellow Rushing waters to waterfalls Seeds breaking earth Bird's beak breaking seed All in service.