Hello All,

I used to be registered as "minn8918", but re-registerd as OldCarnegieLibrary, as I haven't posted in quite a few years. I just wanted to relay a recent experience I thought you might enjoy.

I have been a Ray Bradury fan since about 1973. Two years ago, my daughter (out of curiosity) picked up the story "All Summer in a Day" and read it through. I had been trying to interest her in Ray's works prior to that point, but she ended up discovering his stories on her own. She loved the story and understood it well.

She is now in the 6th grade and her class is studying descriptive writing. I offered to her teacher to come in and talk about Ray and his style. Last week, I gave a 45 minute presentation to the class. I started out with Ray's biography and a description of his writing style. After that, I showed the DVD "Ray Bradbury: The Story of a Writer" and discussed further with them the steps of finding inspiration and the mechanics of writing a story. After that, I closed with a reading of my favorite Bradbury story, "The Green Morning" (which took a little bit of effort from myself not to choke up at points...as it is an inspiring story to me). I tried to make the entire presentation interesting and engaging to the kids, but looking around the room, it was hard to tell if it sunk in entirely. However, the next day, I received 30 individually written and designed thank you notes from the class.

To me, if I was successful in getting even one child interested in reading Ray's works or to aspire to become an author, then I've received the greatest compensation anyone could give to me. The recent passing of Arthur C Clarke drives home to me once again the inevitable certainty that Ray will leave us in the coming years. If children can learn to love, enjoy, and write about life from reading his works, what greater honor or reward can Ray recieve?

Well Done! I know you have touched at least one of those kids.

I'm so glad you did that...I'm only a freshman in high school and I know it takes someone like you to get hooked on Ray. My own teacher last year suggested DANDELION WINE and now I have an ever-growing love of Bradbury. I already wanted to be a writer, but he has inspired me to write so much more than I did before.

Actually, I just finished a multi-genre project on him and it was wonderful. If any one in interested in a lowly high schooler's work, this is the poem I ended the writing collection with:
(I'm sure all of you will be able to see the infinite number of allusions to his works, because most of my peers didn't.)

Symphony of the Fantastic

Symphony of the Fantastic, commence!
Murder methods brewing in an infant’s plush head,
The scalpel lingers as pink lips wiggle quizzically.
Why the body perched on ladder
Above MGM Studio walls?
Molten eyes letting burning gazes go.
Like Quasimodo, the beast stirs,
Sentiments in water-eyes seen but ignored.
And behind him, Jesus Christ at Calvary,
Rust and dirt pounded into bloodied palms—
Just an actor,
Just an actor.
He looks below as two bodies wash ashore.
“Tally!”, a man cries,
“Tally!”
With her smiling eyes and whispering hair.
And yet another, unstructured and only skin
Because of a panic as a haunting skull snickers.
The shadows shift to show someone having
Their midnight snack from a femur.
And three hours later, is the town prepared?
The Lord plugs His ears
As Lucifer waves the flaming baton
To the calliope-clamor that buries alive.
Dwarf men trapped in mirrors,
Tattooed men murdering wives.
Fat men, thin men, fire-swallowing, Electrico-men, wo-men!
The freaks circling the pride and joy: carousel
That children reach out to grab years by a rope.
And then—
“I’m alive!”
Before the wild ride is even over.
Breaths and actions don’t mean much
When Life hasn’t given you
Her clue that it’s all real.
Summer can continue with new tennis shoes,
Root beer drippings,
Happiness Machines,
And a taste of Death’s own dark ice cream cone.
But as soon as a rocket is built on a hillside—
All is behind.
First, Italian families with fantasy rides,
Then to the real apple in space lined with sawdust.
Is anyone ready for the ghosts of dotted lines
Outlining brown, gold, persons with culture?
Nothing will be separated.
Poe follows in his House of Usher the second—
Murdering apes, golden pendulums, the ever-ticking...
And then the blue-green orb gone.
There goes Laurel and Hardy up the grand staircase,
A boy convincing Dickens to conjure characters.
What a world,
What a world.
Butterflies caught in a car front,
Car in front of a grand mirage,
Mirage shimmering like flames on pages
That flutter—Hawthorne, Dickinson, Huxley
Lost.
The thermometer climbs to 451
As one man lets his flamethrower drop to the floor
And walk on the riverbank’s poetry.
The one man sprouting a swastika and moustache
In front of the empty arena.
A need to see a psychiatrist is great
When it’s empty,
But mostly when beasts dance under a periscope
And bacteria is everywhere.
The war has just begun—
Boy dodging bullets with a smile
Though the smile is on the bullet.
And drummer boy never laying down the drumsticks a-thump.
A grand finale!
The wind rushes through,
Hear the voices of the dead?
Flying machines, banshees, birds in harmony,
Hidden doors to Salem, mummies, all!
The great whale leaps from the Emerald City ocean,
Ahab starts.
One last turn in the dark room
To find the Lonely One behind you,
Clearing his fatal throat...
And behind the grand set like a king,
A great ruler is he
A grand old man—Ray.
Thick glass pieces framing soft eyes
Ever-streaming with nostalgic tears because
He knows...
His Creations
Have changed
Our
World.

Four stars.

To ofthedarkcarnival, just one word: Outstanding!

Read RB's Zen in the Art of Writing, youthful student! Your horizons await. Write on!

A wonderful contribution. Someone please see that it gets to Ray!

I already printed it in large print (unless someone beats me to it).