Whether or not I disappear
into the unimportant and forgotten
in the moment, the month, the year
after my mind and/or body goes rotten;
whether or not
I win that
annual prize,
and steal applause
from award-night
captives
forced by free food
to lend me
their
eyes
while I say something
gratefully vapid;
whether or not I kiss
that peak
of my potential
to be so
inspiring,
to woo a village
through the words I
speak
toward more calm
and undesiring
innards through
my face and fingers –
still I'll have cast forth
a life of
trying
to best myself,
which will linger
behind me
like fairy-dust
for
those later-
to- dying.
"It's late. I've got a mattress to move in the morning. Spent the day talking to myself about how to help young teachers to make the difference that they want to with their students; how to model for their students the nonjudgmental/curious attitudes and attentive/involved social standards that they desire to see in their classrooms. And I always come back to some iteration of the same hard practice/easy concept: it's not what you say in words, but what you convey in energies, words, and actions altogether.
ReplyDeleteI watched a video online of a little girl who got surgery for a cleft skull – after watching a Judge Judy episode where a mom stood up for her bullied daughter and got pummeled by 10 or so teenagers, but got her case dismissed because she had verbally instigated this specific confrontation with one of the bullies' mothers – and found myself thinking, “Yeah. Bullies aren't stupid; they know that victims bark as well as cower; you can't out-violence them; you can only out-love them.”
To the girl with the scars of a childhood surgery, who will be told with varying levels of sincerity that she is “beautiful.” You are beautiful, and if I ever see you in this world looking less-than-happy, I will do my best to remember that reality in my heart, show it in my eyes, and send it through this cold space into you, where maybe it can bring some good. Because probably I won't last as long as you will." – 30 January 2015
This poem is commenting on the speaker’s acceptance of the scope of his actions. Regardless of if he has the ability to leave a well recognized impact on the world around him by “steal[ing] applause from award-night captives” or “woo[ing] a village through the words [he] speak[s]”, he understands that his actions will have an influence on the world. This understanding of the importance of one’s actions regardless of their recognition or finite remembrance, allows the speaker to be proud of what he accomplishes in the present and not alter his path in an attempt to please others. Through simply living “a life of trying to best [himself]”, the speaker will leave a legacy that “will linger behind [him] like fairy-dust”.
ReplyDeleteThe poem “Motivation…” talks about a burning desire to accomplish a goal. The goal is something that needs to be accomplished for you self and dose not necessarily have to be recognized by others, “whether or not I win that annual prize”. The goal is not to please others and get their recognition it is to tell yourself that you went for your goal and tried to accomplish this with all your strength, “I’ll have cast forth a life of trying to best myself”. In life the poem is saying that if you have a goal create the motivation to go out and do it not for others and not for a silly prize, but for yourself. In a way, the poem is critical of those that are reading or listening to the poem as being “captives” that are forced to come just for the “free food”. The poem is also structured in such a way that it increases in length as it progress, perhaps relating as to getting closer to the goal.
ReplyDeleteI relate a lot to this poem because I hold myself to a very high standard and am always pushing myself to work harder and do better than before. One line that speaks to me is “still I’ll have cast forth a life of trying to best myself” because I feel like I have spent a large majority of my life overworking and trying to outdo myself to a point where I get burnt out and mentally exhausted. Something interesting that I noticed about this poem is that as the poem continues, the structure and form become less and less uniform. It starts out very traditional in a four-line stanza, but then the lines become more spaced out and farther from the left-hand column. I wonder if this was done to show that the speaker is drifting more and more from being his original self and is instead becoming a different version that is only interested in beating himself up instead of doing things for pleasure or true happiness. In my opinion, it seems like the speaker enjoys pleasing himself more than the world around him, which is a skill that is very important to prioritizing one’s own needs rather than those of others. The most fascinating part of this poem to me is the collage. I am not very sure about its connection to the poem, however, it seems as though the little girl is unamused by her father’s attention and is instead focusing on herself and her own thoughts. I wonder what the intention of the collage is and what the relationship between the man, the little girl, and the group of people is.
ReplyDeleteThe image of a grandfather and granddaughter, underlaid by an image of eroding sands, was my attempt at capturing the fleetingness of profound moments: a tender few minutes of connection with a beloved guardian, echoing far into that little girl's life, long after the grandfather passes...
Delete