When crisis arrives,
it's often in svelte boxes.
Generally it
needs loose parts
to become not-nonsense;
without invitation,
it reaches into the edges
of my brain,
shuffling and disturbing
odds and ends,
lifting and
divining meaning
in the miscellanea
only found
at the back
of that shelf.
Arriving unfastened,
mostly,
and held in place
by sheer tenacity,
words and
meanings of words
tumble from its grasp.
I hear my mom saying-
use your words honey.
If they could
be kept from falling
and rolling under
tables and chairs,
I would.
She also has told me to-
hold my tongue.
Confusing.
And funny that poetry
still came from
impossibly form fitting
tensions like these.
Memories never
fit
back into a box.
And sometimes
will not
fit into each other
either.
I have so many of
these moments
shelved with impunity-
an
as-is section
near the bathrooms
just around the corner
from the café
where you choose
between bitter truth
or mushy metaphor
for
your last loonie.
With little paste
to connect ideas,
every line
needs to have en
jambment
to make sense,
stressful that one thought,
potentially,
might never end...
The grammar of poetry
writing has always
been negotiable.
Entitling also.
It's purchase
often made
with words that
my ass is not really
prepared to pay for.
There are
just so many things
that do not fit
back into boxes.
Or on to shelves.
And when they come out,
like broken instructions
for living a
fixable life,
they avoid
specificity.
Storage solutions
instead of
problem solving.
Their intentions
masked and shadowlike
are troubling.
Poems,
forged figurative
and fearful,
not eager
to become prose.
process
metricks
stats are
traps
that
make attacks
from
our gaps.
we travel
and
we trip
over rolls
and flats
trying
to max
our
forward movement
forgetting that
our fears
always
for-warn
the past.
esteem is
made trash.
hope
seems rash.
heart can
get
so broke
no cast
can bring
it back
to life.
same oath
same path
same toasts
same ghosts
same boast-
those that
can,
act.
that’s
their
test.
those that won’t
change,
brag.
and
then
count
their
steps.
candy from strangers
I think
that
misperceptions
of the world
matter.
Count the number
of poems
wrapped around
questions
posing as
stanzas
that never
end in
answers.
You may
just notice
the same thing
that I have.
People
willingly
believe
in people
who
believe.
Like
that’s kinda a
thing in the
poetry
world.
It’s its
bread and
butter.
And really,
it
does
not
matter
if the piece comes
from a lived
place
or an
observed
space
or imagined
case,
it will
always be
someone’s
deja vu
or
secret
or
suffering
or
journey.
this is
good.
this
is
gold.
answers that i can’t use
as i write
each word,
each letter,
they look back
one last time
seeking the nod,
a parental prod-
‘go ahead, go on
you can do it.’
assured
they disappear
and
turn the page.
my thoughts
sculpt my form
into
a very specific
type of
accelerant.
every spark
is
the last line
of the poem
because it
slaps the page
as it occurs;
fires up
and
burns out
and
nothing
remains.
i have tried
to
take time
and bespoke
stanzas
but
the longer
i take
to get
my thoughts
out
the less likely
each line
launches its
breath.
the less likely
fruitful arguments,
blind navigations
ensue,
like shadow boxing-
this word
can’t follow
that word
and that word
follows nothing.
the less likely
a surprise
and a reminder
of the question
I dared not
utter,
appears.
thanks, i’m failing much better now #tifmbn
Yesterday, I got caught up in a Twitter convo that started with this tweet:
I was game to play with this thought. So I posed into the mix- what does this mindset look like in #OntEd?
The bulk of the thread leaned heavy on system leaders being able rock a growth mindset and the importance of administrators modeling an openness to failure.
Tweeps dropped wisdom about innovation, and research, and student achievement, and changing culture, and social change. Still, I wondered about risk and failure. I wondered whether asking for forgiveness, rather than permission was an actuality for most teachers. I also wondered why it was that when we speak of learning and leading from failure, we expect administrators and system leaders to do it first.
The convo was just the right appetizer to get me thinking about my own practice. I have failed repeatedly and continually in a couple specific endeavours; dropped the ball brilliantly with lesson and classroom design; ignored good feedback; upset parents and parents of parents; and generally made messes that I was not skilled enough to clean up. But I have not really dug in and worked through what that has meant to my practice.
So what next?
For the next few blog posts, I am going to spread out my failures and take a peek at all of their loose ends. I will probably chat out some of my #thoughtfuel with @rchids on our podcast DeCodEd. And I will start messing up my messes with the following questions.
- What was the goal?
- At what point did I start failing?
- Why did I not stop and admit defeat?
- What could have been done differently?
- Were there skills deficits that were revealed through the process?
- Were there skills surpluses that were revealed through this process?
- Who should I have checked in with during the process?
- Who should I check in with in order to move past this failure?
- Now that I have failed, what do I do next with this knowledge?
- What did I learn from this process?
Please reach out and toss me some feedback about this piece. If there are other questions that I could include in my framework, please send ’em my way.
If you are looking to pull apart your pedagogy a wee bit, I am happy to share my blog space with anyone that wants to post up some words about their own failures in #OntEd.
I can be reached through Twitter @chrisjcluff or via email chrisjcluff@gmail.com.
Be well,
cluff
barista
writing poetry is like craving coffee. one bad cup, one bad line and the day is ruined. and i hate knowing that in order to love that first sip i gotta drink like 15 cups to find it. and the problem in processing caffeine is that everything starts happening at the speed of sound. shit gets missed. light becomes leaden. time blinks in and out while my senses try and make sense. noticing focuses then snaps like an oversharpened pencil. yet i keep writing with that hobbled tool making word shapes and letter sounds and sentence pictures. i once cut the line of a funeral procession because of over caffeination. i felt so bad that i wrote a poem about it. but i never apologized to the family in the lead car. i keep looking for the line that was waiting in line. scanning for a raised hand at the back of the stanza. for the voice simmering just under the noise and the scribbles. coffee in coffee shops is easy, asking someone else to grind it out and brew it means that you are in their hands for the gift of the sip. hell you can even hand it back and ask them to make it again. and again. yet when these ridiculous dancing ideas meet dark roast and accepting paper, i light up. and if it rhymes easily, everything stops. and i stop. my heart stops. my coffee cools and i wonder if i should rewrite the whole piece around it.
words keep wolves at bay 