美文欣赏 My First Poem

　　My First Poem

　　When I was eight, I wrote my first poem.

　　My mother read the little poem and poured out her praise. “Why, this poem was nothing short of genius!”

　　This evening when my father came in, my mother began to tell him, "Ben, Buddy has written his first poem! And it's beautiful, absolutely amazing--"

　　"If you don't mind, I'd like to decide for myself," Father said.

　　I kept my face lowered to my plate as he read that poem. It was only ten lines. But it seemed to take hours.

　　"I think it's lousy," he said.

　　I couldn’t look up. My eyes were getting wet.

　　"Ben, sometimes I don't understand you," my mother was saying. "This is just a little boy. These are the first lines of poetry he's ever written. He needs encouragement."

　　"I don't know why." My father held his ground. "Isn’t there enough lousy poetry in the world already? No law says Buddy has to become a poet."

　　A few years later I took a second look at the first poem; it was a pretty lousy poem. After a while, I worked up the courage to show him something new, a short story. My father thought it was overwritten but not hopeless. I was learning to rewrite. And my mother was learning that she could criticize me without crushing me. You might say we were all learning.

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