"What made you change?"

"It was that poem, actually. I still remember the moment when I read it . . .

"I think it changed my life. My parents wanted me to be an engineer, and I never really questioned it. It was practical. But I read the poem — I think it was just called 'Poems' — and then I read another, and then another. I think I spent the whole day in the poetry section, and everything seemed different by the time I left. I didn't think I was going to be a poet, but I knew I wasn't going to be an engineer."

- from Breakable You, a novel by Brian Morton