Pumpkin (2002)

Harry Lennix: Robert Meary (Poetry teacher)

Photos 

Quotes 

• Robert Meary : I can't teach people to write poetry. It has to come from your experience... from your insides. Listen babe, I could show you great poems which you will begin by imitating. If you have some talent, you might write a decent poem by the end of the semester.

  Cici Pinkus : What do you do if everything inside you is ugly?

  Robert Meary : Your life may be ugly, kid, but a successful poem about it will not be ugly because the poem will illuminate and communicate the horror of your life to other people.

  Carolyn McDuffy : What do you mean, the horror of our lives? Why should anything be horrible or ugly? Why can't everything be beautiful and perfect?

• Carolyn McDuffy : People are mean. They're brutal, they're unhappy, they're jealous.

  Robert Meary : Good. Good, good. You've made some progress. Now what on earth made this happen?

  Carolyn McDuffy : [horrified look]  Something I left on the beach.