This week, I have felt more than a little silently thoughtful after reading Jim Cummins’ missive from the outpost of a younger-self-and-Kenneth-Koch and Denise Duhamel’s memories of Jane Cooper.
For those who have shared my sense of wonder, there’s a recent book, Efforts and Affections: Women Poets on Mentorship, by editors Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker. This is a collection of essays by young women poets about the poets who first influenced them. Each essay is followed by a selection of creative work that demonstrates a sort of functional or spiritual community between the pair of writers. (My come-clean moment: I have an essay in this volume.)
The origin of the modern word mentor and mentorship dates back to a character in The Odyssey. Mentor was often the Goddess Athena in disguise—posing as a friend of Odysseus who watched over young Telemachus in his father’s absence. For the Greeks, the word was connected to intention, spirit, passion, and admonisment. Latin etymologists adapted this gentleman’s name into the Roman word for “mind” (mens, mentis). A mentor, hence, is a powerful, brilliant figure.
An apprentice, by contrast, takes her linguistic lineage from the Latin verb apprendehere, meaning “to learn”. Note that the English “apprehend” implies an action by the student—whose teacher could be demonstrating by counterexample as easily as by wisdom. Hence, one might apprentice oneself to any piece of text on a page—from Shakespeare to a recipe book, but can only be mentored by a mentor.
Just curious: To what, if anything, is your work enthrall*? (which means literally, “to make serf”, c.1576; though for me, this experience is necessary, meaningful, positive)?
-J.F.