Writer’s Graduation Day
Getting my Master's degree today
When I first went to the university, I enrolled in a leisure arts curriculum.
Direction
I worked at it long and hard in the process of directing my eventual life’s work, my career.
When I had completed that part of my education, I decided to take it a step further. Now that I knew my direction, I needed to discover my voice. Today is finally graduation day for that next step.
I am from Nashville, a bit of a country boy, but high-school educated in a private school, and fairly well in command of the language. At Vanderbilt, I became a part of a journalistic group that called ourselves the new fugitives. We were a literary group of one-armed poets who were falsely accused of murder but spent most of our time searching for the man who was the actual killer.
Voice
The voice I have now discovered is that of a comfortable but educated southern storyteller, a poet from the new fugitives, defined by good taste and discovery more than by emotion and current events.
Like my other poet associates, I live by the motto, “first, do no harm.”
Life can be simple, fruitful, and highly enjoyable.
My education includes enough variety to still remain germane in today's world and keep me able to communicate even in a changing landscape of technology.
My experience is likewise varied enough so that my writing is not purely theoretical.
Results
Hopefully, my parables and stories contain the color and detail one would expect from a person of this geographic heritage and inquisitive upbringing. My sense of humor is rarely concealed. My desire is but to educate and entertain, not to moralize, but if, from time to time, the essays contain life lessons of a good and virtuous type, so be it.
Thank you all, sincerely, for your time.
