Eighteen year-old Meg has been set adrift ever since her father left their family, driving away in a blue car. Now in her final year of high school, Meg has finally found a life-line: Her poetry teacher, Mr. Auster, a man who exposes her raw talent, drives her to succeed and introduces her to the wonders of her imagination. At home, Meg must balance her defiant anger at her over-worked, inattentive mother with her valiant struggle to help her troubled younger sister. But at school is where Meg enters a whole other world where her deepest feelings come to the surface, where she is safe to tell the truth, where she has a future--which seems even more exciting when she wins a poetry contest and the opportunity to compete in the national finals in Florida. But as Meg prepares for the contest, things begin to disintegrate at home, the bottom falls out, and Meg has only one place to turn: Mr. Auster.