What I Write: The Written Text

As part of this year’s National Day on Writing (which is Friday and Saturday — yeah, two days as one), I wrote a poem on the theme of what I write. I also began to toy around with various media, and will release a piece of my multimedia poem as the days go on. Today, it’s just the text of the poem. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you do some writing this week — yourself and with your students — on the concept of “what we write” in celebration of the National Day on Writing.

What I Write: An Archeologist of an Idea

What I don’t know
when I write are the mysteries of ideas –
the shadows filtering in from outside of myself
as some sort of jewel
half-hidden away in my consciousness demanding
freedom
from the perpetual over-thinking of just about everything.

And so, pen scratching paper,
fingers pounding keyboard,
skin touching screen,
the writer in me tinkers with these treasures that slowly unfold as
a singular phrase,
an inspiring song,
a passionate letter,
a sad story,
a shout-out-loud yelp into the wilderness of the world,
a poem — always, it seems, my mind comes back to me as a poem —
which circles back around on itself
until the grains of time get gently brushed away
and I, the writer, slowly emerge as an archeologist of an idea.

Peace (in the poem),
Kevin

 

4 Comments
  1. At the end of the day yesterday, we got a new post card from a K class in Texas and it ended with a question about our school mascot. When I pointed out that they other class had a question, we started thinking of some questions we now had. The students loved their own thinking and it was in the form of questions. Someone wanted to know how many children were in Texas. Another wanted to know more about the 100 heat in that state.
    You wrote, “…the mysteries of ideas –
    the shadows filtering in from outside of myself
    as some sort of jewel
    half-hidden away in my consciousness demanding
    freedom”
    It reminds me that our students need to develop their own ideas and that these should be given the “freedom” to grow and expand on their thinking. All too often now, the narrow confines of curriculum units make the experience lead to a multiple choice or true/false assessment.

  2. Thanks for the idea of thinking about what you write, and then putting it into a poem, as you said it always comes down to, Kevin. I like this line especially: “a shout-out-loud yelp into the wilderness of the world”. Sometimes I’ve said to students when they are researching that it’s like cracking an egg to see inside. They must question and write and research their passions so they can ‘crack their own eggs’. Looking forward to your additons to this in the next days.

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