I’d like to say that there are 5 books I’m currently reading. But as a professor during the academic semester, I’m finding I only have time to read the poetry I’m researching & assigning in my class. So I hope it’s okay to talk about individual poems & essays instead of entire books. I’ve only read one book recently, which is Claudia Rankine’s Citizen. I read it on the bus to vote this Tuesday. I have been reading it on the bus going to & from work this week. I’ve been reading & mourning. This week, I’ve learned that I am now comfortable crying in public. This week I’ve tried to listen to my students more than talk myself. I’m a professor at a community college that’s a designated Latino-serving institution with a large immigrant population & my students were crying. So my classroom became a space to cry & for them to talk with each other. We read Layli Long Soldier’s piece, “38” & my students talked about the Sioux Uprising & using the language of the oppressor & presenting facts without embellishment & the history that we want to dig up that is often buried inside the body of the victims & the circularity of history & how to “leap” outside of an unending series of concentric circles & the Dakota Pipeline protest in Chicago this Saturday at 2pm. We read Alexis Almeida’s “It’s Growing Stronger” and my students wanted to talk about these three lines in the poem, “The all-night coughing, my body /Curing itself with violence / The insulation of the rich.” I listened to my students as they discussed the disconnect of the wealthy as well as the segregation of the impoverished. I listened to them talk about violence as coming from within the body, what it means to associate violence with a cure. I listened to them talk about violence in revolution and what kind of “cures” they were looking for in our country. I’ve included a creative writing exercise below that we did in class, based on her poem.
It’s Getting Stronger Exercise
Instructions: Take out a piece of paper & a pen. Allow yourself no more than 30 seconds to a minute to answer these questions. Do NOT read them ahead of time. This exercise is designed to have someone hold this list & read the questions to you every 30 seconds to one minute. Before you begin, think of a feeling you’ve had that is growing stronger. Identify this feeling. It can be a feeling toward another person, a feeling about the current election, a feeling about any issue.
Constraint: you may write no more than 7 words per line.
1) When you wake up, what is one sensory experience you look forward to before you leave your house/apartment (taste/touch/sight/hearing/smelling)?
2) What is the first lie you remember telling?
3) What is one image that comes to mind when you think of your experiences riding the train or bus?
4) What is one memory you have that takes place in a backyard?
5) What’s one feeling inside you that’s getting stronger? What does it feel like? Make a simile. This can be longer than 7 words.
6) What is one memory you before the age of 10 of being proud?
7) When you leave the house, what is one sensory experience you look forward to encountering?
8) What is one thing you want someone else to love about you? One way you want to be loved?
9) Come back to this feeling that’s getting stronger. What size was it originally? What size is it now? Create a simile to compare. This can be longer than 7 words.
10) What is one memory that takes place in a basement or an attic?
11) What is the last thing you tried to ‘cure’ yourself of? This could be physical, emotional, political, etc etc.
12) What is one irrational fear you have?
13) What is one rational fear you have?
14) What is one thought you’ve had that made you feel like an adult?
15) What is a sound that comforts you?
16) Come back to the feeling that’s growing stronger. If this feeling could leap out of your body, what is the first thing it would do?
17) Finish this sentence: The feeling it’s too late to explain ____________________.
18) Finish this sentence: Yet, the desire to speak of __________________________.