March Reflections
My house has been described by a friend, as resembling something of an 'Early Years’ setting.
When I asked why she said that there are pockets of places where I can be seen to have created something at some point that week.
Paints left out, a stack of notes in another place, poetry book scattered, yoga mat, resistance bands, abandoned chalk pastels still beneath a piece of paper stuck with tape to the wall, a figure emerging - in their own time.
Creativity is always present in my life, a way of being that I don’t see as separate or as an activity that I timetable, it is in everything. It’s often the lens I look through...life feels more accessible that way.
Recently I have been reading a lot of poetry. I wonder if this sentence alone will cause some folk to stop reading and move on to the parts that give information - but I will take that risk.
Andrea Gibson once said:
"Anyone who thinks poetry is frivolous, has never had to tell someone something unspeakably hard, beautifully"
Poetry as creativity has softly tumbled about in my mind a lot this month. Something about the way the words so often seem to occupy only their own necessary space on a page, in their own unique pattern & in a way that looks spacious & free. Poetry doesn't take the words to the edges of each page, doesn’t have to fill each line of a notebook, is not judged as 'incomplete' if it sits their proudly stopping mid page.
We accept it. It’s a poem.
It can be that way.
All of these things take my mind to the teenagers I work with. Many of them neurodivergent, all of them resilient. The teenagers I work with all occupy space in their own unique ways. They do not conform or remain within the lines; they flow to their own rhythm and make their mark in a way that can alert or intrigue their reader.
I know that sometimes I can read a line of poetry and it will make little sense in my head. In those moments I choose to re-read and place the emphasis on a different phrase, rhythm or sound. Always this leads to greater understanding in the end.
I try to understand what its saying. Poetry, like teenagers, can divide people. Deliberate words expressing uncomfortable truth, spat out by spoken word artist unapologetically emboldened. Minimal words, carefully delivered with cutting edge tuning. Beautiful emotional prose that keeps you captive to the emotion and unable to tear yourself away.
All of these ways parallel the experience of both to me: communication with teenagers, relationship with poems.
It helps me to use this way of thinking. To see teenagers as the poems we influence and witness. The poem we can choose to read with curiosity, to practice understanding the language or can choose to move on by turning the page.
For me, the juxtaposition speaks volumes right now. As adults, parents, carers, professionals and all who encounter young people trying to find their own unique mark on the page - what will you choose to do?
Embrace the beautiful expression no matter how complex...or stay rooted to the frivolity and turn the page?
What will you choose?
- Katy