David is an award-winning poet and teacher at a small private university. He has a great
academic job and a golfing buddy in his colleague Mark, a recent divorcee. But underneath his
polished lectures about “life as an artist”, he hides a secret pain, the suicide of his wife five years
ago, a pain which is numbed through alcohol. He is violently shaken out of this numbness by
Sofia, one of his eccentric students. A reactionary response to one of her poems begins a chain
of events that will eventually cause David to drown under the watery weight of the past. He
becomes a mentor to Sofia, recognizing her amazing talent yet also wary of it. After her poem wins a national award, he allows her into his graduate class and discovers that this shy girl has become a strong woman unafraid to argue and fight against his teaching. The relationship evolves from teacher/student into a battle of what is most important in life, rules or emotions.