You can go in now, miss,” the receptionist directed.Emma crossed the waiting room and entered the office. The Chairman of the American Committee motioned Emma to a chair across the desk from him.
“Thank you for coming in today, Ms. Lazarus,” he began. “We’ve reviewed your submission and, frankly, we were quite taken with it. You’re a very talented young woman.”
“Thank you very much, sir.” Emma’s cheeks reddened slightly with the compliment as she smiled, looking down at her hands in her lap. Rather than put her at ease, the flattery made her even more nervous.
“We found your poem to be compassionate, imaginative, and, well, sparkling with a certain vitality. We’re really quite excited about it. The Committee suggested that I speak with you today to see if we could... fine tune it just a bit.”
Emma looked up. While she may have been a bit embarrassed by the Chairman’s flattery, she was fiercely defensive about her work. “’Fine tune it’, sir?”
“Maybe that’s not quite the best way to put it. Let’s take a look at it together, shall we? That’s probably the best way to get at it.”
Emma was quite confused. She was led to believe that the American Committee had selected her poem as the winner. She thought that meeting with the Chairman was merely a formality.
“Now, right from the first line, we see strength, leadership, charisma, compassion. All the characteristics we want to present. But, we’re just not sure we want to give the impression that all we want are the ‘tired’ and ‘poor’. You know what I mean? ‘Huddled masses’? ‘Wretched refuse? These are very strong images.”
Bu hikaye Greenwich Country Capitalist Magazine dergisinin Issue 60 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Greenwich Country Capitalist Magazine dergisinin Issue 60 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Humanity First
As I listened to Donald J. Trump’s “America First” inaugural speech on NPR, I was struck by a conversation I had had with my Afghan daughter before she departed for a semester in Rome the day before the inauguration.
Our Little Racket
In the waning light of the predinner hour, Mina Dawes sat across the table from Isabel, desperate to keep their conversation aloft. During the silences her gaze wandered out over Isabel’s pool, its surface entirely untroubled beneath the late-afternoon sun.
The Palm Beaches
IT WAS WINTER 2011; I was sitting alone in my home in Connecticut.
The Einstein Legacy Project
ALBERT Einstein was a true genius.
Statue Of Limitations
You can go in now, miss,” the receptionist directed.Emma crossed the waiting room and entered the office. The Chairman of the American Committee motioned Emma to a chair across the desk from him.
Hamptons International Film Festival's Silver Anniversary
LIGHTS! Camera! Action! It’s hard to believe the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is celebrating a quarter century of showcasing great works in film.
Megyn Kelly Settle for More
Rye’s Megyn Kelly, in the Spotlight.
Women Create Their Own Opportunities in New York's Growing Weed Industry
On a recent Thursday evening in downtown Manhattan, nearly 50 women and a few men, ranging from millennials to baby boomers, gathered in a sleek co-working space to talk about weed.
Mah Jong Memory
I remember mah jong through a haze of memory and my mother’s Benson & Hedges cigarette smoke.
The Heirs
Eleanor belonged to that class of New Yorker whose bloodlines were traced in the manner of racehorses: she was Phipps (sire) out of Deering (dam), by Livingston (sire’s dam) and Porter (dam’s dam).
