‘To A Student’
Photographer - Tobi Brun
To a student who wrote that poetry is an ineffective way of providing social commentary because “if it was effective then why do all these social problems exist.” Allow me to answer your question.
Perhaps it’s because students don’t take the time to read them, students who plagiarize their way through the school year whilst proudly proclaiming none of this is relevant to their future. Perhaps it’s because people put on blinders so they can only see the white tips of their shoes and ignore everything that they see as “unnecessary.” If it has no worth in this moment to you, it
must have no worth at all. But where will you turn when you’re hurting so deep that your very soul aches in your chest? Will your biology textbook be there to show you that you are not alone? Will you find solace in computing a mathematical equation when your world crumbles around you?
If you truly have not felt your heart fall into your shoes, if your knees have never buckled from the weight of the baggage you carry, then I am happy for you. I am so glad you have never experienced sitting awake at 12am with fresh tears on your face and loneliness hogging your covers, wondering if ever in history anyone has been where you have been.
Society has told you The Cure surely must lie within the web of social networks and so you turn on your phone but only find empty inboxes and timelines full of smiling faces.
But perhaps there, in the endless tide of photoshopped scenes, you will find a voice that shares your pain. Perhaps you will hear the flow of stanzas in a new light when your soul is what’s hurting. At 15 years old, you know so little about the world and even about yourself. Times will come when your boat is rocked and the sea of life threatens to swallow you whole. In those times, I offer you this poem as a reminder that you are a dynamic being. That you can choose to be different, to evolve. And that poetry is there to hold you when arms are not enough.
See, Poetry is not the solution, but the salve. We need legislative action and community building to do most of the work. Instead poetry is there to remind you that when life kicks you down, you are not alone. When the world tells you that you aren’t enough, it is there to tell you that you are made of stardust and held together by magic. You are a wondrous creature alive on this beautiful planet and that is enough. Poetry is there to comfort, to inspire, and if nothing else, to allow the writer to find their own peace.
I will not apologize for sharing this all with you because for every kid like you I have five who are hurting and looking for the rest that poetry provides. The world is full of so many demons and so much pain. I am no exorcist, but these two hands will always be there to press this page against the wounds of those who fall. If poetry is not for you, I wish you no I’ll will. There are plenty of things I dislike too. But what I will not entertain is the disparagement of something I need to survive like water on my lips and food in my belly. For I know, through all the poems you disdain, that I am not alone. May you find the same comfort.
Natianna Ohmart is a high school English teacher in Independence, Missouri. She lives in a little blue house stuffed full of five cats, one psychotic dog, and an untold number of houseplants. She finds her purpose in advocating for and implementing anti-bias teaching and encouraging young writers to find their voice.
