I'm trying something new, taking a risk this month - participating in#VerseLove with Sarah Donovan,
hoping to write poetry every day this April.
Today's poetry inspiration is from Susie Morice, who offered the challenge to think about 'epiphanies,' those 'morning-after moments' when you see things differently, when something shifts and you gain insight or new perspective.
I particularly welcomed this bonus information for writers:
Processing movement or shift from one stage to another always involves looking at two sides of a fulcrum...Think of it as 3 stages: 1) where we were, 2) the pivotal moment of shift, and 3) where we are now after the moment of change. That helps shape a Morning After poem. It also shapes novels. It shapes character development, before and after events/trauma. It shapes the mathematics of levers and torque to calculate fulcrum in physics. It shapes chemical reactions...you get the picture: this is a universal type of exercise.
Are You Sleeping?
Bug-eyed, wide-awake, 3:46 a.m.
I am thinking through our words
Again, and again, and again.
Why do I care so much?
Why do I wrestle like this?
Why do I feel so frustrated?
Why does it matter so much?
Why does it wake me up?
Bug-eyed, wide-awake, 3:46 a.m.
I am thinking through our words
Again, and again, and again.
If a child isn’t learning,
don’t we have to change
the way we look at it
the way we work at it
the way we are set up for it?
Bug-eyed, wide-awake, 3:46 a.m.
I am thinking through our words
Again, and again, and again.
We make plans.
We set goals.
We call meetings.
We offer prescribed supports.
We meet the letter of the law.
Bug-eyed, wide-awake, 3:46 a.m.
I am thinking through our words
Again, and again, and again.
We want the system to work,
the child to fit within,
rather than
bending,
turning,
stretching
to meet the child.
Bug-eyed, wide-awake, 3:46 a.m.
I am thinking through our words
Again, and again, and again.
I'm not sleeping.
Are you sleeping?
Susie Morice, from Sarah Donovan's 30 Days of Poetry website:
ReplyDeleteMaureen — Oh man, those repetitions and the time remaining “3:46 a.m.” just hammers home those nights when I was still in the classroom and replaying the conversations of the day…trying so doggone hard to “meet the child.” The ending “I’m not sleeping./Are you sleeping?” — waaaaay too real. The short clipped lines and the white spaces look like empty cups, which seems to be exactly the sense of how we, as teachers, sometimes just never can fill the cup. The testament to the dedicated teacher, though, is that indeed we are always “thinking through our words.” It takes that to teach. I just wish it weren’t so exhausting. You have capture that exhaustion! Thank you for carving out the time to write such a meaningful realistic poem for this audience! I’m sending you strength vibes to tilt that fulcrum and sleeeeeeeep. 🙂 Susie.
Laura, from Sarah Donovan's 30 Days of Poetry website:
ReplyDeleteWow, Maureen, this is all too relatable. I don’t know if there are more of these feelings these days, or if I have more time to sit and hopelessly dwell on them from my dining-room classroom–or bed! Your repetition is a reminder of the all-encompassing-ness of this anxiety and the cyclical spiraling that goes in hand with late-night worries. You’re not alone and you’re doing the best that you can!
glenda funk, from Sarah Donovan's 30 Days of Poetry website:
ReplyDeleteMaureen,
I am thinking about the repetition and newness of teaching as I read your lyrical poem. I love the refrain, the playful imagery, the serious subject in “Bug-eyed, wide-awake, 3:46 a.m. / I am thinking through our words / Again, and again, and again.” I love the chorus of child and teacher voices here and throughout. Beautifully written. Thank you. I hope you sleep well tonight.
—Glenda
gayle sands, from Sarah Donovan's 30 Days of Poetry website:
ReplyDeleteMaureen—call me next time you are awake at 3:46. My chosen time is 4 AM! I, too teach kids who don’t fit.
And I sit in meetings where we label and prescribe, and in my heart I know that this will not change the outcome. And I wake up in the morning at 4 and try to think of something that could. And I can’t. Thank you for this poem. (And I’m not sleeping…)
Anne EJ Johnston, from Sarah Donovan's 30 Days of Poetry website:
ReplyDeleteI am an unhappily retired SPED teacher, out to pasture on disability for a non-stop migraine. Although I am now pruning my professional library to pass along, I have so much trouble recycling my arts integration projects. So I completely understand /Bug-eyed, wide-awake, 3:46 a.m./ –except for me, at least my last year, it would have been WRITING the IEP to get it JUST RIGHT, just the way the downtown supervisor liked them.