Tag Archives: poetry

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Sometimes You Need to Write a Cheery Letter to Yourself

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Dear Spence,

Some days you aren’t going to feel like writing.
It’s not because you are sad or mad
Or frustrated or too happy or too glad
It’s because some days you just don’t feel like writing.

But those are the days when you need to write the most
Otherwise words will follow you around
And settle into the cracks of your mind like ghosts
And if you don’t let them out, they’ll threaten their host
Which is you on the days you don’t feel like writing.

And so even if those words need to be arranged
Into crappy poetic lines of a twelve-year-old boy, deranged
Get them out, put them down because tomorrow you will be changed
Some days you won’t feel like writing.
But tomorrow you will.

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Leadership as Servitude

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As I’ve mentioned once before, I help with a Writer’s Workshop for middle school students. It’s rewarding work. And I am blessed to be able to work with these young people so often. This past Friday we were finishing up our acrostic name poems. We work with them in the school’s library. The volunteers are waiting for the students as they come in and so we watch them group off to the several library tables. Most of the time, this is done down strict gender lines. This Friday was no different. The girls giggled into their respective corners. And the guys guffawed into theirs.

I like to change up who I work with so I can start to get a feel for tailoring instruction methods to different groups of students. This week, I targeted the boys’ table full of the class clowns. Two of them weren’t even finished with the rough drafts of their acrostics. The third was rather above and beyond where he needed to be. I sat down and introduced myself and then waited. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything out of these kids if I tried to force feed it. So I sat there and watched how they interacted, trying to catch on to their inside jokes and get a feel for their slang and junior high jargon.

After a couple of minutes, I had a rough sketch of how they interacted as a group, what made them tick as individuals and what was holding them back, and then I started instructing. Boy number one, the most creative of the group, was held back by his need to be the class clown, which he mostly achieved by self-deprecating humor. I know how that is. But when I showed him that his poetry could involve things like noises or slang, he immediately took a new liking to it.

Boy number two was mainly held back by his lack of will. All he needed was a few reminders to keep working, and he was fine. Boy number three needed someone to buffer the disruptions from the other two or else he got distracted.

As I have more interactions with people in which I am in some kind of position of authority, I am becoming more and more convinced that I cannot help them unless I actively work against the formality of that position. Leadership as servitude is a very powerful thing.

I’m interested; do you find that it is easier to lead when you are attempting to serve others?

Unknown's avatar

Script It

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My college does this really cool thing where they go and teach middle schoolers about writing. So every Friday they graciously let me go spend time with 12 and 13-year-olds. I think mostly I have very little business being around children. I’m not a very good disciplinarian, and I like talking to them more than I like teaching them. But whether or not the students get anything out of it, I love hanging out with them.

Yesterday was our first day of this year, and so we spent our first lesson doing introductions. Introductions are interesting things. As adults, we’ve figured out how to finagle the system. Growing up should really be called “growing better at avoiding meaningful interactions with other people.” When we introduce ourselves, we use a script. When you ask my name, I will say Spencer, maybe Spencer Smith, but never Spencer James Smith. When you ask me what I do, I will answer student but never how I sometimes sit in my apartment eating Rice Crispies and watching marathons of The Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo. And when you ask me how I’m doing, I will always say good. Even if it’s not.

Twelve-year-olds haven’t figured that script out yet. They still value things like creativity and individuality. Certainly, by the end of the year they will be much more scripted, but for now, they are pretty honest. Funny thing is, though, that their educators only push them more and more towards the script. As part of the introductions, each student in our class was asked to write a brief bio, the contents of which had been determined for them – a couple words to describe themselves, their likes, their dislikes, their fears, and their hopes. Amazingly, though, even given physical scripts, the students were themselves.

They talked about fearing robot uprisings, being hurt in football, and losing loved ones. They talked about loving school and hating school. They talked about their dislike of the difficulty of dieting. And they talked about being adopted, their compassion for famine in Africa, and moving to a new country. And I learned all of these things from a 30-second scripted introduction.

I have a friend who is obsessed with being genuine and another who is obsessed with innocence. I laugh at them when we are together because they think they are arguing when they are actually agreeing. Innocence allows us to be genuine. As we learn more about the world, we also learn that it sometimes makes people uncomfortable when we are completely honest.  And so we stop being honest and genuine. And we start saying things like “My name is Spencer. I am from Springboro, Ohio and I am 20 years old. I like ice cream, pizza, and reading. I dislike exercising, peas, and textbooks. I fear snakes. I hope that one day I will graduate. And one day I would like to visit Egypt.” Who’s the twelve-year-old now?

Weekend Bonus*:

Someone said she sought someone
Per positions plagued perilously,
Ergo ego  economically
Now new inquiries inside.
Commonly commenting
Ego
Responded, “I am Spencer.”

*I’m going to try and do the same assignment that we give the students each week just for fun. This week’s: acrostics.