Petals

Sunday and the twenty-ninth Covid blog. 🍁

We hear sayings all the time, “What goes around comes around” They’ll get their comeuppance.”
This is usually in response to being wronged in some way. However, we do not always know when this righting of wrongs will happen, if it happens, or how long it will take.

When I was young I remember being upset as I was teased in primary school due to my name. My surname was Eacott but I was often called “Eacock Peacock.” Silly and childish behaviour, but it hurt.

My Mother told me to reply with “Peacocks are beautiful” I did as she said and they laughed in my face. My Mother then told me to retaliate using the phrase “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” That did seem to work a little, although I have never truly believed it. I feel that words are the most powerful arsenal we have.

The things that people say embed into our brains and the negative always lingers longer than the positive. We always remember the one thing we did wrong or cruel words, despite the hundreds of things we got right and each kind word bestowed upon us.

Sometimes though, we are rewarded and we are able to share in readdressing the balance. When given the opportunity to right a wrong.

It happened in the most beautiful way for me this week:

The regular readers of my blog will know I write poetry, how much I love the spoken word that for me, a world without poetry is colourless. My first recollection of writing my own poetry was around nine years old in my primary school.

As I grew older and started at secondary school, my English and Drama lessons were everything and I listened intently, devouring every word. I have written a little of this before in my blog entitled ‘The Uninvited Poet’ but not in such detail.

We were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to be incredibly creative, to write stories, poetry and plays. This being something I completely relished. I was ‘that’ kid who continued to write these at home for fun.

We were given the task to write a conventional love poem as homework and we were told it must include the similes and metaphors of love. We had been studying romantic poetry. It is where my roots and passion really began. We looked at Byron, Shelley and Keats and ‘The Rose’ by William Blake. It was the latter that gave me my inspiration.

It took me some time to write this poem, having to draw on my limited experience of love as a weird and self conscious fifteen year old, who thought herself unworthy of such things.

I had however, tasted my first anguish of love and infatuation. The unexpected joy and the awkward bitter sweetness of rejection.

At this tender age, our feelings are intense and new and alien. Something I vowed never to forget, unlike my scholar, who dismissed them so vehemently.

I remember writing and redrafting, I remember the white crunched up balls scattered and discarded on my bedroom floor. I also remember how proud I was of my writing, the first that made me feel I could write poetry. I could not wait to show it to my mentor as for me, every word felt true and real. I am still intensely proud of this poem, despite its naivety. It was my beginning…

Her reaction was not as expected. I am not sure exactly what I thought she would say? I do know of all the scenarios I had played in my head none included the words “You couldn’t have written this.”

To say I was crushed, would be an understatement. The fact that it had taken me so long to write, the carefully chosen words which had come from my brain and heart and spilled onto my page with pride. To hear her say that she didn’t believe me despite my plea that ‘all of it’ was my own work.

The word plagiarism was suddenly banded around, it was the first time I had ever heard such a word and once I discovered its meaning, it cut me to my very core.

When I look back, I understand that she was a young teacher who made a mistake, but even now I find it hard that she could have said those words out loud instead of keeping those thoughts to herself. I know that she showed my poem to her colleagues. My Drama teacher stopped me in the corridor and saved me.

” Miss showed me your poem Joy, I know you wrote it, I know what you are capable of it is beautiful.”

I imagined he defended me to the hilt and it meant the world, he was always my favourite teacher, one who taught us that we could be anything.

These words however, had wounded far more deeply than she would ever realise.

Despite continuing to write poetry for friends and family and never losing my love for the subject, I did nothing with it, that little seed of doubt. I think it will always be there and having spoken to poets far better than I, it seems it is a common thread.

It sadly took a tragedy before I was brave enough to share my poetry and realise that others thought it worthy.

This week though, this paled into insignificance when a student sent me by email, a poem he had written.

When I begin a poetry unit especially in their first year, I always show the video of Benjamin Zephaniah performing his poem ‘Talking Turkeys.’ Apart from looking like the coolest poet on the planet, his poem is clever and funny and they really enjoy it. I want to show that poetry can be fun.

I do not teach the pupil who sent me the email anymore but he remembered, he remembered when he wrote poetry in our lesson, when I told him the lines I really liked and how he could maybe change certain words so they would flow into the next. He remembered.

The poem he sent me was awesome and inspired by ‘The Legend that is Benjamin Zephaniah’ (his words not mine) and I too showed it to my colleagues. Several of the lines in his poem brought tears to my eyes but the ending of his email really made me emotional and it meant the most.

“Thank you for believing in me”

Our words matter.

I have been waiting a long time for this moment, this moment that righted a wrong.

We never know the impact our words give to others or how loaded they are with thought and feeling. We should always try to choose our words carefully. Our words matter.

I hope you too have a heart singing week.

Stay Safe,

Joy xxx