Writing Our Way Into The Journey
This Fall the Just Write virtual writing group will embark on a writing marathon with my first year writing students. Each week we will explore new topic(s) of significance to that group of writers that also offer inspiration and invitation for other writers. During the first week, we focused on how we feel about writing and also considered our life journeys.
Writing Our Way
We opened with the line taught to me by Richard Louth via the New Orleans Writing Marathon: I am a writer from… I invite writers to consider how they feel about writing those words and to unpack the baggage they carry. I encourage that unpacking by sharing a series of poems. The first poem is a poem I wrote this summer as part of a larger poem inspired by a need I still feel for a writing teacher’s oath (along the lines of the Hippocratic Oath or Nightingale Pledge). My original pledge did not include the poem below until my friend Miguel Clark Mallet reminded me that a writing teacher’s oath must include my own stance as a writer. Our conversation inspired both poems below:
I am a writer Because I must write to know Myself and the world Writing both lifeblood and itch Just guiding light and anchor Excerpt from The Oath of the Writing Teacher by Deanna Mascle I pledge to walk the writer’s slow, bewildered way: drenched in words, seeking patience, grace, humility, gratitude, and ever joy. A Writer’s Oath by Miguel Clark Mallet
If you are interested in another level of challenge both Miguel and I wrote our poems using the Tanka form. The tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as “short song,” and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form (Poets.Org). Learn more about Tankas here.
Sharing these poems is about introducing myself as a writer who writes within a community of writers and demonstrating how I think and feel about writing as well as the teaching of writing. I want to model that writers share their writing with other writers first and that the feedback from other writers influences how they revise and shape their writing.
But I also want to make it clear to my students that I know full well that many of them do not feel the same way about writing. I also want to make clear that the fear and loathing they might feel for writing and the resentment for taking a required writing class are a natural, human response to their previous experience with writing instruction. And so I also share a poem that I wrote while working with students years ago:
You are a writer. You just don’t know it yet. You have words trapped inside your soul Beating wings against your rib cage Desperate to escape. You are a writer. You are just afraid to commit pen to paper Wary of sharp blades dripping red Baring your tender core To worldview. You are a writer. You have messages to send Songs to sing Words to shape Worlds to save.
I also share this excerpt from Grace Period by Kelly J. Baker to emphasize that writers first audience is themselves and the only reason for writing that counts is because you have something to say:
Own your story and the places that made you. And write what feels the most authentic to you…
Write because you want to write. Just wanting to is enough. Write because what you write matters. Remember that always, especially because there are plenty of jerks in this world who will tell you otherwise. Write because you want to speak. Write because you want to be heard. Write because anyone can be a writer.
You just have to write and keep writing.
When was the last time you spent some time reflecting and writing on your own relationship with writing? No matter where you are on your journey as a writer this is a worthwhile exploration. I wrote about writing and teaching writing a lot during this week and that was definitely a journey worth taking.
Into The Journey
While I want to signal that our focus this semester will be on our development as writers, I also want to acknowledge the other journey of transformation my students are undertaking. My first year writers have embarking on a fraught and perilous journey. Some are the first in their family to go to college. Some are returning to school as adults with families and/or full-time jobs. Some have already tried and failed at college. They are excited and nervous and full of questions about themselves, about life, and about the future. I wanted to offer space to explore those questions and emotions so I offer three words and definitions to invite writing. Even if you are not a first year writer, perhaps you see yourself in these questions and invitations:
Becoming: (in the philosophy of Aristotle) any change from the lower level of potentiality to the higher level of actuality; any process of change.
Transformation: a complete change in the appearance or character of something or someone, especially so that that thing or person is improved; change in form, appearance, nature, or character
Alchemy: a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination; the process of taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary, sometimes in a way that cannot be explained
I invite you to write about the journey or transformation that is on your mind at the moment and suggest these questions as additional inspiration if you need it:
- Where do you hope to go (in terms of learning and/or life) this season, semester, or year?
- What worries you about the journey before you?
- What do you hope or fear you are leaving behind?
- What will you always carry with you?
Writing is essential to my process of growth and learning. I need to write my way into each new transformation. I hope that sharing this journey with me will help my students with their transition and I hope that sharing this journey with me might help other writers with their own transitions.
I will leave you with one final poem, a collaborative poem formed by 12 lines with 11 different students contributing a line:
I cannot start a story but I can help bring closure to one The middle of the story is as important as the beginning and end The end might not be desired but we can fathom How to transition from surrounding socials to silent solitude Are they as broken by all this pandemic living and learning as I We must choose a way, even with no sight of what’s to come The roughest of roads is a road nonetheless Filling our chests with a breath of courage in each step For each journey is destined for one person to walk How did I get on this road, and when does it end Some roads are best less traveled, like the one you're on Shall I keep walking? Or should I run towards that future
Image by Peggychoucair from Pixabay
