Bob Dylan - "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie"

 My beloved high school drama teacher Vanette Vedder made it a point to introduce each of her students to this Bob Dylan poem, which has been dear to my heart ever since—mostly because there is so much of her in it. It's the kindof thing every high school student needs to hear, an honest and poetic ode to hope. The difficulty of hope. The beauty of hope. The necessity of hope. The importance of hope. The godliness of hope. The elusiveness of hope. The authenticity of hope. And yes, even the audacity of hope.

Don't be put of by it's Seuss-like (Seussian? Seussesque?) cadence. There's a lot here—a lot more than I understood when I was 17. I remember writing a response to the poem which chose to focus on a pluralist (gasp!) statement in one single line—"you'll find God in the church of your choice"— rather than the heart of the piece or anything else that actually mattered. I've done a lot of growing up since then—or at least I hope I have.

Here is the text.