For fifteen years, I worked as a carpenter. I learned to recognize what could bear weight, what needed reinforcement, and what was worth repairing. Reading has asked me to bring that same attention to a human life, including my own. I grew up on Cleveland’s west side, raised by a single mother. In my family, working at Ford represented a dependable future. My mother encouraged me to imagine other possibilities, even when I could not yet name them. Today, at forty-four, I am a first-generation college student studying English and creative writing at The Ohio State University. Books have helped me find both a direction and a reason to pursue it. Reading James Baldwin has taught me to question the stories a person inherits about race, belonging, and possibility. As a Black and Hispanic man, I recognize the pressure of being interpreted before being understood. Baldwin’s work pushes me to examine that pressure honestly, while also examining myself. His example has shaped my ambition to write with conviction without letting conviction excuse easy judgments. Poetry has taught me another kind of attention. Reading Sharon Olds and Marie Howe, I have learned that an ordinary object or an exchange between family members can carry the weight of an entire relationship. Their work makes me slow down. What did the room look like? What was said? What remained unsaid? Those questions matter when I write about my mother, childhood, or loss. They help me approach memory with care and give readers something they can experience for themselves. Ross Gay’s poetry has widened that lesson. I am drawn to writing about difficult experiences, but his work reminds me to make room for delight, gratitude, and the lives unfolding around me. I want my poems to contain the fullness of a person. Someone who has suffered also laughs, notices beauty, and has something to offer others. These lessons have shaped a concrete goal: to become a published poet and an educator serving underserved communities in Cleveland. After completing my bachelor’s degree, I hope to pursue a fully funded MFA in poetry. I want to develop the craft and teaching skills to help students discover what language can make possible. I imagine asking them to write about a familiar street or someone they miss, then helping them see how much their observations already hold. Barbara Cain’s dedication to young readers gives this scholarship particular meaning for me. Her life as a librarian reminds me that a love of books can become a form of service. I hope to carry that commitment into classrooms and community writing spaces, where encouragement and access to literature can help someone begin. My mother encouraged me to imagine a larger future. Books have helped me give that future a shape. Now I am working toward the day when I can place a book in a student’s hands, listen to what they find in it, and help them recognize that their own words deserve attention too.

I was raised by a single mother on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio. Becoming a scholar wasn’t a vocation I knew existed as a child. The people in my family believed working at Ford Motor Company was as good as it got. That was the dream for most of them—get out of school and get a job at Ford. Lucky for me, I had a mother who was always telling me I could do anything. She believed in me, and now that I’m an adult, I know how instrumental her encouragement was in my becoming the person I am today, and in my becoming the first person in my family to go to college. The power of hindsight is its clarity. When I look back over the biographies of my mother and my father, I’m able to see how those two individuals were the perfect combination of people to create exactly me. It was my father’s absence and my mother’s love and resilience that both contributed to my unique perspective. It is because of the life I have lived that I endeavor to become an educator in underserved communities. I want to help the people of those communities see what is possible. I want to be a positive male role model for all those young men and women who need one, as I once did. Being the first person in my family to complete college will reverberate long after I’m gone. My son is always asking me questions about college. His eyes light up when I show him the grades I get. I see him considering the same future for himself simply because he sees me doing it. He doesn’t ask about working at Ford Motor Company. He says he wants to be a lawyer. I tell him I’ll show him exactly how to get there. He’ll be the first lawyer this family has produced, and a big part of that will be because of the decisions he sees me making. I’m excited for this next chapter of my life—for the lives I’ll get to be a part of and the people I’ll get to help transcend their circumstances. That’s my dream—to live the rest of my life being the kind of man for others that I needed when I was growing up. As a father and full-time student, this scholarship would afford me the ability to focus more of my time and energy on my education—enabling me to grow and develop to my greatest potential—rather than constantly worrying about and scrambling for money.

You’ve heard the argument regarding nature versus nurture. Human beings are definitely affected by their environment. Our genetics are the part of ourselves we don’t have much control over, but when introduced to the proper environmental facilitations, human beings can transcend any and all circumstances. I grew up without a father, and still somehow found my way to manhood. When I think about how I got here, I’m constantly reminded of the people my memory highlights—people who took the opportunity to have a positive impact on me when I was young. As a man now—though it took some time—I know exactly who I am; I am a positive male role-model for those I’m afforded the opportunity to be, and I am working hard to do something amazing with my life. Both of those understandings drive me, and have led me to my junior year of college and becoming a teacher. Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, I’ve been exposed to all the elements that contribute to underserved communities. What I found was, the people who had someone believing in them—such as Sloane Stephens’ grandparents believed in her—were usually the ones who did well with their lives. For some people that person was their parents, or grandparents. For other people that person was a coach, a guidance counselor, or a teacher. Usually if a person doesn’t have a stable home-life, their last chance before losing their way is the adults they encounter at school. I was blessed to come across a few adults who believed in me when I was a child, and that has made all the difference. This part of my life is the part where I get to pay it forward—where I get the chance to be, for underserved communities and underserved youth, what others have been for me. I’ve learned the skills to help young people growing up in a world they don’t quite understand and that doesn’t quite understand them. I understand the anger and frustration that breeds within young people born into underserved communities. I’ve also learned that not taking their anger, self-degradation, and/or instincts to push people away personally is the kind of presence youth need to feel safe enough to be themselves. I’ve learned the key to connecting with underserved youth is emotional intelligence—patience, understanding, and empathy. Empathy perhaps being what I offer most abundantly due to having grown up in the same situation. Conversely, I’ll also be offering daily living-proof that transcendence is absolutely possible. Thank you for your consideration of my application for the Sloane Stephens Doc & Glo Scholarship.

For my close reading essay, I’ve chosen excerpts from section 15 of Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche. In this section, Nietzsche exposes the instability of moral values across cultures— not simply to argue that nothing has meaning, but to show that meaning is created through human evaluation. Rather than affirming nihilism, Nietzsche is pointing toward the necessity of becoming creators of values ourselves. Each excerpt will begin a new paragraph, followed by my close reading of the excerpt. Excerpt 1: “Much that passed for good with one people was regarded with scorn and contempt by another: thus I found it. Much found I here called bad, which was there decked with purple honours.” Nietzsche uses juxtaposition between different groups to destabilize the idea of universal moral truth. The contrast between “scorn and contempt” and “purple honours” is especially important. “Purple” suggests royalty, prestige, and reverence— meaning what one culture elevates to the highest status, another rejects entirely. By placing these extremes side by side, Nietzsche reveals that “good” and “bad” are not fixed categories, but products of cultural valuation. The phrase “thus I found it” reinforces that this is an observation, not a doctrine— he is showing, not prescribing. This challenges the reader to question whether their own values are inherent, or simply inherited. If values differ so dramatically across cultures, Nietzsche next turns to how those values are actually formed. Excerpt 2: “It is laudable, what they think hard; what is indispensable and hard they call good; and what relieveth in the direst distress, the unique and hardest of all,— they extol as holy.” Here Nietzsche links moral value to difficulty. The repetition of “hard” suggests that societies often equate struggle with virtue. What is “indispensable and hard” becomes “good,” and what is “hardest of all” becomes “holy.” This progression reveals how moral systems are constructed by elevating certain forms of behavior— often those that demand restraint, sacrifice, or endurance. The word “extol” implies active praise, suggesting that these values are not discovered but reinforced through collective approval. Nietzsche is not simply criticizing these values, but exposing how they are formed— through a shared agreement that difficulty itself is meaningful. Having shown how values are constructed, Nietzsche then examines how they are preserved and passed down over time. Excerpt 3: “To honour father and mother, and from the root of the soul to do their will”— this table of surmounting hung another people over them, and became powerful and permanent thereby.” Nietzsche’s phrase “hung… over them” introduces a powerful image of weight and dominance. The command to honor one’s parents appears virtuous on the surface, but Nietzsche suggests it functions as a structure of continuity, where past generations impose their values onto the present. The word “table” refers to a moral code, but something fixed and external— something handed down rather than chosen. By describing this code as something that “became powerful and permanent,” Nietzsche shows how such values sustain themselves across time. His focus is not limited to religion, but to any system that preserves authority by embedding it within moral obligation. If inherited values maintain their power in this way, Nietzsche next raises the question of how they can ever be changed. Excerpt 4: “Change of values— that is, change of the creating ones. Always doth he destroy who hath to be a creator.” This is one of Nietzsche’s most profound assertions: creation requires destruction. The phrase “change of values” is immediately tied to “the creating ones,” suggesting that new values do not emerge passively— they are made by individuals willing to break from what already exists. The word “always” is absolute, reinforcing that destruction is not incidental, but necessary. Nietzsche forces the reader to confront a tension— we often admire creation, but ignore what must be dismantled to make it possible. Here, he reframes the creator not as purely constructive, but as someone willing to challenge and overturn existing systems of meaning. Yet if creation requires breaking from the past, Nietzsche recognizes that most people are not naturally inclined to do so. Excerpt 5: “Older is the pleasure in the herd than the pleasure in the ego: and as long as the good conscience is for the herd, the bad conscience only saith: ego.” Nietzsche contrasts “herd” and “ego” through the language of “pleasure” and “conscience.” The use of “pleasure” is important— it suggests that conformity is not just enforced, but emotionally rewarded. The “good conscience” aligns with the herd, while the “bad conscience” is associated with individuality. This reversal reveals how moral systems condition people to feel guilt for separating from the group. The word “older” implies that herd instinct is deeply rooted, making individuality feel unnatural or even wrong. Nietzsche is exposing how morality operates psychologically, shaping not just behavior, but internal feelings of right and wrong. Given this tendency toward conformity, Nietzsche then changes focus from individuals to humanity as a whole. Excerpt 6: “A thousand goals have there been hitherto, for a thousand peoples have there been. Only the fetter for the thousand necks is still lacking; there is lacking the one goal.” Nietzsche emphasizes a lack of unity of the whole of humanity through repetition: “a thousand goals… a thousand peoples.” This suggests that every group creates its own system of meaning. The image of a “fetter for the thousand necks” introduces the idea of constraint— a unifying force that could bind all people under a single purpose. The absence of “the one goal” is significant. Nietzsche is not simply underlining this lack, but pointing to a deeper condition: humanity has not yet defined a shared direction. Rather than presenting this as failure, he leaves it open— as a problem still to be addressed. This absence leads Nietzsche to conclude the section with a question that turns the entire argument back onto the reader. Excerpt 7: “But pray tell me, my brethren, if the goal of humanity be still lacking, is there not also still lacking— humanity itself?” Nietzsche ends with a question that reframes everything that came before it. The phrase “my brethren” creates a sense of shared inquiry, but I believe the question itself is meant to destabilize the reader. If humanity has no unified goal, then what defines it? The pause before “humanity itself” gives the line weight, forcing the reader to confront the possibility that what we call “humanity” is incomplete. Rather than offering an answer, Nietzsche leaves the question open— suggesting that the task of defining humanity may fall to those willing to create new values.