On Being A Writer (Continued)

A few years ago, I took a poetry workshop with a certain poet whose work I just loved. Said poet is progressive in her manipulation of language-- she saturates her poems with sound and kicks them around with rhythm. Her work is characterized by energy and a funky sensibility grounded in alliteration and image, a driving pace and linguistic pop. Needless to say, I was really looking forward to working with her. Part of the workshop guaranteed an hour-long critique of a short portfolio of work that you could share with the writer ahead of time. In my mind, this was the best part of the day! When I finally sat down with the poet to talk about my poems, she proceeded to recite a list of no fewer than five rules a poet should follow. Naturally, I had broken all of them. During the hour we were together, the poet could not identify one thing she liked about my work. Not even when I asked her, point blank. Needless to say, I didn't feel very good that day. I had only recently revisited poetry in my writing repertoire and I was excited about the possibilities of playing with language and I felt that some of my poems were pretty good. That some readers might consider them beautiful. But I was wrong. Not only was I embarrassed that my poems didn't measure up to this poet's assessment of what a good writing should look like, but I was ashamed of myself that I had even thought to try. She may as well have looked at the papers I handed her with tentative anticipation and declared me "Unclean!" right on the spot. I felt that stained by my-- obviously-- misplaced pride in my work. I couldn't even look at the other workshop participants for the rest of the day. I was so embarrassed that I had even tried. That I had the temerity to think that anything I had to say mattered.

I don't think this poet was all that different from many teachers. She probably meant no harm. She possessed a particular aesthetic and she felt it her responsibility to communicate it through her critique of my work. It is an author's prerogative to do such a thing. And after all, I had chosen to share... I wanted her opinion. It was unfair of me to resent it when I had, indeed, paid for it! But she was a teacher too! The little voice cries in my head and for that reason, she had a responsibility to develop me and not destroy me. I felt violated. And I most certainly did not feel like a poet that day. And truth be told, I didn't write another poem (that I shared with anyone anyway) for ten years.

I wonder how many students in my classes would like to be writers-- are, indeed, writers-- but because of their inability to name themselves as such, miss the opportunity to practice their craft. After all, one of the reasons  I don't like to call myself a writer is that I don't have a regular writing practice. If I did, I would be a writer. But maybe if I called myself a writer, I would have a regular writing practice because, well, If I'm a writer it would be silly not to be writing, right? I don't know. I guess it's a semantic catch-22, but I do think there's something to owning your title. And not limiting the purview of that title's governance. Part of the reason my students fail to see themselves as writers is that the definition of a writer is so narrowly drawn-- especially in the standards-driven, test-bound laboratory that serves as an English Language Arts classroom these days (O, the 5-paragraph essay!). I remember a time (although it seems long, long ago) when students were allowed to write creatively in class-- it was an expectation of an English curriculum that it would provide opportunities for students to express feelings and ideas and explore narratives. Now whenever it happens, I feel guilty-- as if I'm depriving them of a healthy diet of structure and ideas and conventions and replacing it instead with cookies, ice cream and cheetos. So, I wonder why students don't think of themselves as writers, but they often only get limited chances to actually make sense of themselves in that light. My schedule especially has lent itself to these limitations. As a teacher of AP Language and Composition, I felt a tremendous pressure to help my students maximize their performance on the exam and while I can proudly say that I never taught my class as a test prep course, I know that I was guilty of managing my students' writing to such an extent that I am sure I extinguished virtually any creative flame they might have nurtured in private. Now, as an instructor of senior English required electives (I know, "required electives:" oxymoronic...), I am ashamed to admit that one of my students, when asked on an end-of-the-class survey to summarize what he felt he had learned during the course, wrote, "I learned I'm a bad writer." This particular student is bright, ambitious and possessed of an entrepreneurial nature. He will attend a "name" school in the fall. His work ethic is strong and his energy for ideas and images is lively and interesting. His writing does possess myriad syntactical flaws, sometimes making his very cool ideas unintelligible, but instead of coming away from my class with a sense of his personal dynamic as valuable, he thinks, simply that he is a "bad writer." I did that. Because I have been frightened into thinking that the only way to get a writer to write better is to compartmentalize and judge his work.

I don't want to misrepresent myself here. I am not the crazy lady with the red pen who writes "awk" (for "awkward") all over my students' papers as a certain senior English teacher who once taught me was wont to do. I encourage writers. I write lots of positive comments on students' papers. I take them through draft processes. I do all the "right" things. I would never say to a student "You're a bad writer. Don't bother." Not in a million years. In fact, I am probably guilty of what is currently referred to in the childrearing handbooks as "overpraising" students for their diligence and ability. I want them to feel good about their efforts, after all. But with all of that said, that young man still walked away from my class feeling as though he was a "bad writer." This tells me that my fear is more potent and present than I would have imagined and it is making its way subtly into my teaching practice. What frightens me is that I didn't know this about myself until that boy wrote those particular words on that evaluation. What troubles me even more is that I have failed to make the connection between my own disappointments and reactions to criticism as a writer and students' potential reactions to my critiques of their work-- that I, like that poet all those years ago, had disappointed my student in one of the most insidious of ways. Instead of gently guiding him toward improvement, I denigrated his effort. This saddens me immeasurably because even though I don't think about it that often (anymore anyway), I can still call up the deep resentment of that woman's power over me). Now it is possible that poet had something valuable to impart to me that day. Whatever it was, however, got lost in my humiliation over her assessment of my work. On that summer afternoon, sitting at a sun-warmed picnic table under the aromatic lindens there should have been space for learning and growth, but the environment she created with her criticism left no room for that.

I fear the young man in my class feels exactly the same way about me.

I hope it does not take him ten years to recover.