A Poem a Day (633): NaPoWriMo Day 6 - 20 pages

 
NaPoWriMo Day 6 
 
Prompt: write a poem rooted in ‘weird wisdom’, by which we mean something objectively odd that someone told you once and has stuck with you ever since. Need an example? Check out Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, Making a Fist. www.napowrimo.net

 
20 pages
 

“I resent having to read 20 pages of something that even you didn’t find interesting,”
he wrote.
The words sat there and shouted. First year of uni, first piece of homework.
I can’t remember what grade he gave. There was a hell of a lot of red.
I was staggered. What could he mean?
To write 20 whole pages on one thing, you had to find it interesting,
and that didn’t include the myriad ‘boring’ bits I chopped out,
to cut it down lest he thought it a bit too long. 

I was trying to write my response to a Shakespeare play,
explain how it made me feel (I can’t remember now which one,
but I went on to read every single one, the sonnets too),
but they wanted you to regurgitate other people’s views.
So maybe we weren’t really supposed to have our own,
or at least you had to back it up with the accepted thought.
We just needed to hoover up what had been before
AND NOT WRITE 20 PAGES…
maybe just stick to one, which someone ‘big’ had already said.
 
I fondly missed my A Level years, when your voice was heard,
and your take on a piece of writing was valued and cheered.
It was something I heard said many a time, so it wasn’t just me.
We all had our shy dreams, and somehow they got battered,
maybe a little, maybe a lot – it depended who you asked.
I guess we wanted some kind of 60s-style literary commune,
where we sat around peering at the stars, relating stories,
getting drunk on cider (well, I was teetotal). You get my drift.
 
He was thin, he wore a beret, some girls said he spent time in Paris.
Perhaps he missed the croissants.
The room was very small. Lots of brown. Lots of wood.
I guess the writing was on the wall: you can’t win them all.
Maybe he was trying to say, ‘you’ll never be accepted’,
‘you’ll never be a real writer’, ‘you just don’t have it’,
whatever ‘it’ is. I don’t know.
I’m still hunting for the rainbow.
 
On this journey, my first time away from home, I was expectant.
We were all expecting things: to feel inspired, supported,
feel a connection with all these writers we admired, all these pages.
We were faced with a mountain. An obstacle course of deadlines.
Go to sleep and a breeze of papers chased you down the street!
“A proper reading is to read a book three times.” When?
I kinda needed a hologram, being a person who loved to sleep.
Yet somehow, we did it. We found a way. And sailed on through.
 
But still, I had the time of my life. Loved the craziness of it,
this freedom, the learning anew about every single thing,
the conversations, the people, so so many people,
more than I’d ever met in my life. My little book opened.
 
Vickie Johnstone, April 6, 2024