I have taught for more than 40 years, written for longer than that, and read more poetry than could be accounted for. You might think that eventually I would conclude, as some others have, that there is nothing new to write, and that I might even wonder, as many still do, what the point of it all is anyway. In other words, that I might reach the end of feeling inspired.
On occasion I do feel that way, but it’s rarely more than a couple of days before either a student or a new poem shows me how wrong I was to doubt the efficacy of self-expression for deepening thought, feeling, experience, making life better and more worthwhile.
Maybe this should be three columns: one about why we are inspired to write; one about why we are inspired to teach; and one showcasing the best of my students’ writing (that one would have to be a book). Somehow, though, those three things, and the three poems below seem closely related to me and form a sort of column in poetry.
First I’ll share a poem by a recent student of mine that came from a perspective I’ve never seen in poetry before, and that I know was useful to him and should prove useful to others as well. The student is Colin Cruikshank, a freshman Project Management major and lacrosse player at Lenoir Rhyne who says this is the first poem he has ever written.
Last
Being last is walking onto the field already knowing your reps are numbered
Being last is learning the art of waiting
Being last is memorizing plays you may never run
Being last is clapping loudest
Being last is hearing your name only when teams are called
Being last is becoming fluent in silence
Being last is learning to celebrate others
Being last is imagining the moment you’ll finally be needed
Being last is deciding whether to stay committed or be angry
Being last is what makes good players great.
Despite my endless reading and writing, every student, every semester somehow manages to surprise me with something like this, proving to me that there is always more to say and more reason to encourage others to say it. Now here is a poem of mine about that moment every semester when most of my students begin “clicking” with their own writing, when they find their groove, settle in, and begin to feel the value of what they’re doing for themselves, and how that moment affects me.
Study Habits
My students have a habit of making me proud.
Yes, the best of them, the ones who produce
good work without much effort but still
constantly strive to make it better anyway,
but also, and maybe more so,
those who start off slow but grow
every week as their confidence,
their knowledge, their thinking deepens,
and the ones who struggle but admit it
get behind, but stick with it
and begin to find their voices and want
to write more almost despite themselves.
It’s what makes teaching rewarding,
and ever not teaching impossible to imagine.
Finally, here is my poem that answers, in a variety of ways, that question that sometimes plagues all of us who develop the habit of writing: what is the point of it all.
Why I Write Poetry
Because I can’t plant flowers all the time
or take hikes, or go for drives to nowhere,
Because just last week I erased all of my emails
from the previous month on accident
including the one that had the beginning of this poem,
Because when I am writing poetry
no one tells me I should have shaved,
no one tells me I have grown old,
no one tells me I am monotonous,
my lines all sound exactly the way I want them to,
Because all the poets so far haven’t had time
to write all the poems that need to be written,
Because need is a strong word but the right word
and in poetry the right word is exactly what’s needed,
Because we all have things we want to express, explore, explain
though we know that all we have are theories,
Because the twisted sheets beneath me say I dreamed all night again,
Because childhood was not the pleasant time it should have been,
Because the pain we carry should never fully define us,
Because birds and trees and mountains and hiking and kindness
can redeem just about anything,
Because why else would I be here if not to pay attention
to this world, this life, these people around me,
Because otherwise what would I do with all these words,
Because I want to squeeze just a little bit more out of life
and make something that might last a bit longer,
Because if you turn around and I’m not there,
it probably means I’m gone.
