I wrote this piece earlier in the year as a position poem sample for my students. The assignment called for students to pick an issue that mattered to them and draft a free-verse piece that shed light on the issue. The parameters of the assignment were broad-by-design. I wanted students to give life to an issue, challenge a powerful system, call for change, examine their feelings – really just take a position on ANYTHING that mattered to them.
To quote Daniel Hill, author of White Awake, and removing his religious beliefs and his theistic lens, Hill posits that “young people who navigate this world on a daily basis” serve as the “greatest subject matter experts on race, justice, and identity” (179). And I couldn’t agree more that our youth have so much to teach adults if we are willing to listen – I’ll be expanding on this topic in a coming blog, so check back for that.
In the poem below, I’m trying to challenge the misconception that many kids nowadays are all the same – lazy and apathetic – when, really, they just need a chance to grow up.
Sometimes, I feel like the Catcher in Rye
Sometimes, I feel like the Catcher in Rye
The one who can’t save all the kids,
All the kids who fall over the cliff.
Sometimes, I feel like a gnat,
Buzzing in and out of their ears,
Neither seen nor ever really heard.
Sometimes, I used to tell myself
The kids don’t want to be saved,
And maybe they don’t want the help.
But it’s a lot easier to tell yourself that
Than to get up and give them your best
Until they too uncover their own very best.
And they will, trust me, they will,
For an education is a gift always appreciating
An education is a future infinitely.
An education is a skeleton key
That unlocks as many doors
And one is willing to turn.
So, give them time, our hope, our dreams,
The next generation are they
And everything in between.
For they will come to conclude
What you have never not known:
That they’re worth fighting for
That they’re worth fighting for
That you are worth fighting for –
Believe it or not,
It’s true.
