In one of my first university courses, we were discussing literary art. My professor pulled up a print of a poem. Over the margin of the poem was a handwritten “stupid” and an arrow pointing to the text. He urged us to never completely disregard a piece of art as stupid, claiming that there is value in every work. However, he did express his distaste for the poem, and all classmates who contributed to the discussion agreed. “It is mediocre,” they said. “What does all of that have to do with a dead daughter? It isn’t coherent.” I sat in my seat with my hands on the small desk attached and read the poem, over and over. It goes as follows:  What People Give You, by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno Long-faced irises. Mums. Pink roses and white roses and giant sunflowers, and hundreds of daisies. Fruit baskets with muscular pears, and water crackers and tiny jams and the steady march of casseroles. And money, people give money these days. Cards, of course: the Madonna, wise and sad just for you, Chinese cherry blossoms, sunsets and moonscapes, and dragonflies for transcendence. People stand by your sink and offer up their pain: Did you know I lost a baby once, or My eldest son was killed, or My mother died two months ago. People are good. They file into your cartoon house until it bows at the seams; they give you every blessed thing, everything, except your daughter back. It struck me then and it strikes me now. I think back to it more often then I would have ever expected. I won’t write my interpretation of it here, but please try to find your own. Maybe you think it’s stupid, that’s okay. But perhaps we need to give people’s expressions a fair chance.