Dear Mr. Amoroso*

I read your essay “I Walk the Canyons (a Tribute to 9/11)” on your post-9/11 experiences and American pride online at
Click here and was extremely impressed.

I am a first year English teacher at Caesar Rodney High School near Dover, DE, and still learning the ways of obtaining materials for my considerably lacking supplies. I will be teaching a lesson on personal narratives and memoirs, and would love to use this essay to model how well sensory details and emotions can be incorporated into a piece. It is vital to me that students learn the power of tone, and I do believe that your essay delineates this strength well.

Additionally, I adored your syntax in “A Brief Encounter” and “Our ‘Friendship,’” and I wondered if, at a later date, I might please use these as examples of the products of a contemporary successful poet.

May I please print and distribute approximately 120 copies—one for each student—to my ninth graders, around mid-September of the upcoming school year, as we commence our unit? Later in November, we will study a poetry unit; again, I would love to be able to share these two poems of yours
in class as stellar examples of captivating language with which my students can connect.

If this is okay with you, please reply to this email to let me know. Also, should I receive your permission to use the article and poems, I will credit each as bylined on the Web site unless you have an alternate credit line that you prefer I use. Kindly include your preferred byline if you reply.

Most Sincerely,
Jamie M. Lee
English Teacher, C.R.H.S.

Of course, Jamie has my permission to use whatever writings requested, and Jamie was kind enough to allow me to reprint this letter, in its entirety.

This incredible photo was sent to me my a dear friend, at the time I was recovering from an emergency hospital stay, and she felt I needed to be inspired, how right she was.

Professional member of

The National Writers Association