Beautiful and sad …

… Teaching William Zinsser to Write Poetry | The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Our lunch conversations often morphed into our writing sessions, when I’d open my laptop and start typing. While Bill mused aloud on a subject—tyrannical childhood dance teachers, his lifelong avoidance of libraries, or stadium billboards advertising Mrs. Wagner’s Pies—I’d type a page or two of particularly good phrases and sentences. Then I’d read it back. “I said that?” he’d interject. Even people as well-spoken as Bill seldom hear the poetry in what they say.