Explanation: I apologize for how late this is. I am quite the perfectionist when it comes to writing and it has been quite a while since I wrote poetry. Why I decided to write a poem was because I’ve found in the past that poetry is the best way for me to gain a new perspective on something which incorporates both my emotions and thoughts about it. I have had mixed feelings about the course from my expectations and what I’ve actually experienced, but in writing this poem I think I discovered how much I’ve learned so far just through taking part in the course. The topic of the poem is listening because of all the knowledge I’ve gained so far, I think the biggest realization was that I could really benefit from shutting up and listening (its a work in progress). So this is my reflection on the process of learning that.
Have I learned to listen?
Ear to the ground
Not for stampede
But arrival of light-foot
Soft-spoke wisdom?
Cupped hands like
Megaphone made stethoscope
Reaching for the weak
Pulse of meaning
Through the rush of blood
In my own ears.
Wednesday afternoons
We sit and talk
In circles, feasting
On the small tart apples
A woman brings from
Her garden, a moment
Ingloriously won in
The mundane
Approval Procedure
Through which my peers and I,
Professors and pupils
(Or have we become more?)
Created this symposium.
It is sometimes confusion
Even in its silence,
Undirected but not aimless.
I am guilty of
Saying anything
At least to get it moving
But on a good day,
I remember to
Practice the art
In holding my quivering
Mouth firm,
Each revolution
Letting sneak out
Only the odd question.
There is a suspicion
About new empty
Chairs each week,
Apple cores left behind,
Scattered without design,
And the faith in
Our defiant staggering.
But I remind myself
Those good days,
Like a mantra
Of my parched tongue
Which could even criticize
The vital beauty in water
For not staying
Neatly in my hands.
Hi Grey,
I was intrigued by your decision to make a poem reflecting on semester one and so I’ve written a response. Your poem is good at communicating the feeling of being in the one of the sessions. When people didn’t turn up, those of us in attendance would note this and as we returned each week would feel the slide in attendance more and more. Your poem also picks up on the treats people would sometimes bring in week to week which we were thankful for and would eat from at breaks in the discussion. Additionally, you reflection on one of the courses goals which was to break us out of our ‘silos’ and allow teachers and students to acclimate with each other. Your poem notices these aspects as part of the discussion but also serves for you as a reminder to let others contribute to the flow of conversation. Overall, I enjoyed your poem as it helps us all to reflection on what the course has been and some of the notable elements of it.
I loved the poem. So thoughtful and well written. As this is a poem it seemed to want a response written as in the style of a close reading. So that is what I have done!
I thought it interesting the poem’s title in relation to the opening line. The words ‘have I learnt to listen?’ – a question is then followed by a stream of thoughts, initially indicating that you have not ‘learnt to listen,’ there is no gap for the reader to make a response. Indeed this is continued throughout the poem with the use of questions before or in the middle of a verse. Yet the title is ‘learning to listen’ and indeed as the poem progresses, it becomes clear that that is what is taking place. The piece itself is very well observed indicating a thoughtful reflection on your surroundings, thereby insinuating that the author is aware of who they are in the space and therefore conceivably ‘learning to listen.’ Furthermore, the reason for the author’s unrelenting stream of thoughts become clearer with the line ‘guilty of/ saying anything.’ The line break in the middle of the clause as well as the word ‘guilty’ stress the sense of disappointment that the author has in themselves for ‘saying anything,’ yet the ‘silence’ that engulfs the space is indicative as to why the author feels they have to speak whilst also demonstrating that the author is not renegading on their quest of learning to listen. Though silences do not need filling, the nature of the poem creates the sense that without speech, the author would feel lost.
The author’s use of the words ‘ear to the ground’ is very effective. Though initially conjuring up the image of a head in the sand, indicating the author is finding it hard to listen, the words indicate a sense of trying to pick up tremors of something, further emphasised by the author’s image of a stethoscope. That tremors come to mind further conjure up an image of an earthquake or a radical shift, something that I feel that this course would like to have had in education an university. A very apt image. Yet the authors use of the words ‘pulse’ and ‘soft spoken’ indicate that the shift is currently faint and a little far away, the word pulse’ having connotations with a doctor attempting to ascertain whether a patient is alive. The poem therefore presents the project that this author is engaged on as the initial calm before the storm.
The change in pace from the first verse with the words ‘rush of blood’, thereby insinuating an anger, to the second verse and the images of apples and community is striking and indicative of the change in pace as the course as a whole. I take issue with the author’s use of the words ‘ingloriously won,’ the words suggesting that we cheated or were subversive in our methods. I would argue that it was important to reward any step that we took due to the complexity of the exercise. That said, the authors ‘faith in our defiant staggering’ is apt and suggests an awareness of the complexities of our exercise, acknowledging that we were not perfect, whilst also being proud of what we achieved and, in the use of the word ‘faith,’ thereby insinuating a deeper held belief, what we will achieve.
Finally, I would like to point out that the authors use of short lines that drift and fall into one another creates the sound of multiple voices talking and flowing into one another, thereby proving that the author has indeed learnt to listen.
Hello!
Have very much enjoyed reading this poem, both last semester and this semester, but I guess both times I’ve been somewhat lost for words to review it with. When I read it last semester, knowing I was meant to write a review, I was aware of my own shortcomings and inexperience in analysing and reviewing poetry, or just providing feedback on anything for that matter. This time round however, I have taken more to heart the actual message in your poem, and instead of reading with the intention of giving something in return, am just reading to read, to listen. Listening is something that has always felt very important to me, and I have often regarded it as one of my strengths. To be confronted with my ability to listen to another person and take in their message being impeded by being too focused on wanting to say something in return, is a beautifully ironic reaction to your poem in which you share your process of stepping away from that exact thing. As my response therefore I want to say that, even though it took me a while, you have been heard, to the best of my abilities at least, which will always lose some of your nuance as I project my own lived experience onto you, and I look forward to both of us exploring this aspect of ourselves further while we become ever more present, more truthful, and more attentive to other people’s communication.