I use to think school was interesting but at a certain point I was feeling it was pointless. Here I was in the eleventh grade not studying English literature but being taught what a noun was. If you did not know what a noun was eleven years into your education I doubted the last minute lesson was going to help.

Years later my daughter was struggling with English and had told me there was no point in learning how to speak or write in proper English because she was going to be a math major.  This shocked me and no matter what I told her she would not listen to me. Then came Drivers Education and all of a sudden she took a little more interest in writing.

It turns out the students had to practice writing traffic accident claims and if they did not pass the forms portion they did not pass the class. Needless to say my daughter found a need for proper English very quickly.

The point of literature has always revolved around the culture it is created within. Writers of poetry, fiction, and drama often comment (and perhaps even mean to change) on the society they are surrounded in. This necessity for the whiplash effect is no more prominent than within American literature.

As America tried to build its own individual identity separate from England, the writers were slowly breaking from British traditions. The biggest break from it may have come from Walt Whitman with Leaves of Grass, which trickled down to the poets and writers that would come later (particularly in the 1950?s).

There have been many significant American poets that affected me as much as Whitman affected the nation. Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Rita Dove, Jack Kerouac, Frank O?Hara, and many others have come and forged their own pictures of the slice of America that I am a part of. I only hope to continue what they have done, peeling away the rind that protects the orange pulp of this country.

I love nothing more than sitting in my greenhouse on a warm day writing my thoughts and short stories.

Greenhouses are very popular.  I wonder what percentage of people have one or more in their gardens.  Greenhouses can be fairly small if you only have a small garden or not much space available.  Or if you are really into gardening you can buy huge greenhouses.

When choosing which one to buy make sure it will fit into the space you have allowed for it.  Green ones are very attractive but may cost more money.  Also the wooden varieties look really good.  Greenhouses make a great addition to the garden.  Something you will use time and time again year after year.