The Ballad of the Eagerly Terrified Poets

I'm teaching a creative writing class this year for the first time in several years. I have a great bunch of kids -- nice, eager and engaged. Still, I've been reminded of several things about teenagers and creative writing, but in a more vivid way than before.

Little children create without hesitation, but once we hammer them with a heapin' helpin' of schoolin' -- into their teenaged years -- they become terrified of it. I'd even go so far as to say they are embarrassed by it. Most of them anyway.

This is what I meant awhile ago when I referenced an American over-emphasis on science and math. As I said before, these subjects are important, on many practical (and necessary) levels, but they tend to bully away the humanities; science and math tend to become the rock stars and the humanities and arts are just the road crew: the show couldn't go on without them, but they never get the groupies or the spotlight.

My teenaged students are terrified of "doing it wrong" when I ask them to write a poem, even when I let them do their own thing; maybe especially so. If I give them a free-verse poem with no constraints and guidelines, they will write one and ask if it is "okay." All I can do is to respond by saying, "Of course it's okay." I make it a point of saying that before I look at the poem.

The Critique

We all know life is weird. We all tend to figure that out on our own, after a while. There are only so many weirdnesses that can occur before we realize that it's not just a random series of events, but an indication that  somewhere up in the offices of heaven, there must be an Administrator of Weirdness, who sits at a computer and checks to see if each of us has gotten his daily dose of weirdness. If not, maybe his hits us with a crazy dream at night, just to make up for it. But there will be weirdness -- make no mistake.

The other night, when my band had finished playing, I was in the process of breaking down my drum kit (a process that always makes me wonder why I didn't choose the piccolo) and I heard a conversation off to my right. Two youngish guys were sitting there, ignoring the bartender's yelps about it being time to leave, and one guy was saying, "... classic rock, some modern rock and dance stuff. Yeah, they were actually pretty good."

Buddy Rich, who grew up to
be more not-crap than just about
every drummer, ever. . 

He was obviously talking about our band. And it just made me laugh a little about the absurdity of human endeavor.

"They were actually pretty good."

So that's it. Some random guy in a bar has spoken his opinion: we were actually (this was a surprise, apparently -- maybe because when we took the stage we looked like we would be horrible) pretty good. Not great; not excellent; not really good -- just pretty good. One man's observation.

The Gift of Observation

Sunday nights sometimes make for the most melancholy posts; or, maybe just the sappiest ones. But I was thinking, today, about how people over-complicate one aspect of the ridiculously complicated job of parenthood: what they want for their kids. Me, I just want my boys to be happy. That's a cool place to settle into.

I don't wish for riches or fame for them. I don't consider it my duty to raise kids who "make a difference" or who become models of charity and goodness. I hope they exemplify good things, but I rather they be happy, in, at least, a "do no harm" kind of way. They must eventually decide if they want to be world-changers; that's the only way it can be sincere.

If I start plugging things into their lives -- things that I think are elements of future happiness for them based on what makes me happy -- I can screw up terribly. If I am going to help guide them into happy lives, I need to watch them. The best I can do is to point out, to them, what seems to make them happy. Because, isn't part of so many people's problems the fact that they don't recognize what really makes them content? -- and then that they replace what would be the true elements of personal happiness with some pale substitute? Sometimes, an outside view can clear up the internal lenses.

Scattered Backward

The very lighthouse...

During a recent morning drive, I glanced over and caught just a quick glimpse of a set steps -- only two of them -- set into the edge of a green lawn, facing the road. They were concrete and they were older; deeply gray and weathered. There was a trace of a stone path leading up onto the lawn, but it was mostly covered over with grass. There had been a house there, once, long ago -- full of living people trying to make the best of their lives, but now it was just a well-kept lawn.

That kind of thing give me a physical feeling of loss, like a little hole in my chest.

Years ago, while in Dover, England, I remember placing my hand up against the outer wall of a Roman lighthouse, the Pharos. I imagined the hands of the builders and I saw images of legionnaires leaning again the outside, making crude jokes or dreaming of heading home over the channel's waters. 

That same feeling -- "loss" is the best I can do.

I'm Nice

That Biblical nice guy. 

Today, in my writing class, I asked the kids to write about the first memory they have of having felt proud. I asked  them to go as far back as they could -- to do a little personal archaeology -- and dig up a moment that still remains in their heads, no matter how trivial it might seem, and blow the dust off of it in order to figure out the nature of their own histories.

As usual, I wrote with the class, remembering a time in grade school -- a day on the playground. The children were being mean to a "new kid." He was a little chubby and he looked like he could have stood a bath, but I remember having felt sorry for him. I walked over, through his gathered tormentors, and said, in the wonderfully unpretentious style that only children can pull off, "Hi. I'm Chris. Do you want to be friends?"

He accepted my offer, and we were off to the monkey bars, walking through a crowd of kids whose chins were now resting on their sneaker laces.