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On the first day of all my classes, I ask students to answer several questions, one of which deals with their concerns about the class. The student who wrote this poem was concerned with two things: her inability to use punctuation correctly and her extreme fear of talking in class. At the end of the six-week course, this student told me that she had learned enough about punctuation to know that using it in this poem would mess up how she wanted to express these thoughts. I agreed.
talking in class
you see i got these thoughts
thoughts of how to be
when to be
and where to be
thoughts that distract me from where i am
keep me from being who i need to be
who i want to be
keep me from going there
to the place where my thoughts are mine
and it's ok to have my thoughts
to be shaped by my thoughts
and to express my thoughts
she says to ask questions
to say when i'm lost
to ask for help
to express what i'm thinking
but how to do that
when i don't know how
because i never learned
because no body ever let me
express
i had to repress
but now i need to think
to think my own thoughts
and to express those thoughts
without these other thoughts
that repress
she says to express
not repress
anonymous student
17 June 2006
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