Don’t Listen to Anybody

By Jason Prokowiew

A well-known poet told me in 1998 that my writing wasn’t good enough for our college writing program. I can imagine the hallway outside her office where she told me this, and recall the buzzy fluorescent lights outside her door, can still feel the cold of that moment, her assuredness.

I reel still, at a 21-year-old me, fresh out of abusive, neglectful home and high school experiences, wounds wide-open and taking what she said as truth, holding it as objective for year...