An appreciation for Sister Maura
Today in The Baltimore Sun, read an appreciation of Sister Maura Eichner, who taught for many years at The College of Notre Dame in Baltimore and died recently at age 94. Diane Scharper, an English professor at Towson University, describes the guidance she received as a student from the fastidious sister. Here's an excerpt:
Sister Maura considered writing to be work, and if nothing else, I was going to learn the value of that work during my numerous courses with her in our four years together. She said writing was 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration — although she didn’t like the word "perspiration." She preferred "sweat," the Anglo-Saxon word, because she thought the Latinate word was pretentious.
An astute and picky critic, Sister Maura believed that good writing came from good reading which, for her, meant the classics of Greek, Roman, British and American literature. We had to read and analyze the text to decipher what the writer meant — not what we wanted it to mean.
An astute and picky critic, Sister Maura believed that good writing came from good reading which, for her, meant the classics of Greek, Roman, British and American literature. We had to read and analyze the text to decipher what the writer meant — not what we wanted it to mean.No matter that ee cummings didn’t punctuate his poems. We had to follow the rules before we could break them — if ever. No fancy British spellings. No exclamation points. Let the words show the excitement, she said. Choose strong verbs. Slash adverbs and adjectives.
Photo from the College of Notre Dame
We could use the thesaurus sparingly — to find the right word, not to show off our vocabulary. She disapproved of pretension and wordiness, telling us to follow the directions on the ladies room paper towel dispenser: “Why use two when one will do.”
The lessons sound easy now. But I learned all of this the hard way after many arguments and numerous revisions of my poems, term papers, short stories, essays and plays — under Sister Maura’s stern ice-blue eyes.
While she always preferred The Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew, 
Comments
I enjoyed so much reading the obit as well as Diane's wonderful article.
I have many good memories of the nuns I had as teachers. To most nuns, the needs of OTHERS are always paramount. If we all lived our lives in that way, the world would be a much better place.
Posted by: Gail Farrelly | November 22, 2009 5:00 PM
I draw Read streeters to Dan Cuddy's words on Sister in our essay- "The Baltimore Poetry Scene- 1964-2007"- in the Loch Raven Review-issue before present.
Posted by: dave eberhardt | November 24, 2009 11:11 AM
here it is from the essay in the Loch Raven Review- by Dan Cuddy:
"
Sister Maura was no shrinking violet, but engaged the world in her poetry. Perhaps her role as nun somewhat limited her circulation in the rough and tumble of literary politics, but her students at the College of Notre Dame often placed high in the Atlantic Monthly literary contest for students.
Occasionally in a used bookstore one may still come across Sister Maura’s book, Walking on Water. It contains both traditional and modernistic poems. Thirty years from now, sixty years from now they will still be readable, and, if they don’t excite the reader, that reader has no head, no heart, no tinder in their imagination.
- and from me- dave- reminds me a bit of Dan Berrigan's verse- let us remember our elders- Gore Vidal spks of the US as the US of amnesia- he is right- we do not remember our own at our own peril!
Posted by: david eberhardt | November 24, 2009 4:09 PM