Sheila's Reading

            Last Thursday we were honored with the presence of a very special reader – the one and only Mrs. Sheila Squillante. I must say that private literary readings are the very best kind from what I have experienced so far. It was a very intimate atmosphere within the classroom and I felt that, as a class, we were able to see how personal these readings were to our teacher.

            She began her readings with a lyric essay called Self-Portrait with Rollercoaster. Throughout the whole essay she used such detailed imagery that made her experiences very real. Also, I enjoyed this piece because of the way she related the rollercoasters to her life. It such a random thing, one would wonder how anyone could relate their life to it, but she did an excellent job of clearly portraying her purpose.

            Another one of my favorite readings was the Maui Poem that spoke about a specific moment of a family on vacation in Hawaii.  The narrator in the poem was very relatable to me as a reader. Her words were honest and real. Moments in life that stick in your head are fascinating things, and the happy message that “everyone is getting some” is just a funny twist to the piece. It was an experience I could easily see myself having as well.

            My third favorite poem of Sheila’s was her dream poem. First, she read it extremely fast and wrote it in a form of many run-on sentences and descriptions. I thought this was the perfect way to portray the poem because her reading fast paralleled the confusing and unpredictable stream of consciousness a dream can cause in one’s mind.

            I was truly thankful that Sheila gave up her time and shared her works with our class. When a teacher sacrifices class time to share personal works, I believe it makes a great impact on the students. Personally, I find it easy to admire them and I think it gives me incite into the work they do other than teaching. It makes them more real and credible in their field of work.