Who was your most influential teacher? Why?

That’s a funny one, because the honest answer is… they never stood at the front of a classroom.

They never handed me homework.
Never marked my work in red pen.
Never told me to “try harder” or “see me after class.”

Instead, they showed up on a screen… late at night… while I was scrolling and trying to figure out where I fit in all this poetry malarkey.

I’m talking about Kyle Tran Mhyre AKA Guante and Neil Hilborn — part of the Button Poetry stable that, quite frankly, turned everything I thought I knew about poetry on its head.

Before that moment, poetry felt… stiff.

Like it belonged in dusty books.
Like you needed permission to write it.
Like every line had to behave itself, sit up straight, and rhyme politely.

And then I stumbled across slam poetry.

Raw.
Honest.
Messy in all the right ways.

I remember hearing Guante for the first time — reading “Ten Responses To The Phrase, Man Up”the way he delivered his words, not just saying them but meaning them — and it hit me like a freight train. This wasn’t poetry you studied… it was poetry you felt in your chest.

Then came Neil Hilborn, with “Joey” that unmistakable vulnerability, laying everything bare in a way that made you uncomfortable… in the way truth usually does.

And that was it.

That was the moment the penny dropped.

Poetry didn’t have to rhyme.
It didn’t have to be pretty.
It didn’t even have to make people comfortable.

It just had to be real.

That discovery changed everything for me. 

Because up until then, I thought I didn’t fit into poetry.

Turns out… I just hadn’t found my kind of poetry yet.

These weren’t teachers in the traditional sense.
But they taught me more than most ever could.

They taught me that:

• your voice doesn’t need permission
• your story is valid, even when it’s messy
• and sometimes the most important thing you can do… is say the thing others are too afraid to

And maybe that’s what a real teacher is.

Not someone who tells you what to think,
but someone who shows you that you can.

So yeah…

My most influential teachers?

Two poets on a screen,
who had no idea I was sitting there,
quietly learning how to finally find my voice.

Stay safe,
BC