"As Music" - Spoken Word Poem/Reflection

This is not so much an episode but 'going public' with this piece is a growing part of my documentation practice. This 'episode' is a spoken word poem that I wrote over a year ago that marks a particular place in a learning journey. I wrote this under the mentorship of Andrea Breen during my the first semester of my graduate studies at the University of Guelph, and it captures and explores how I felt about knowledge (as an academic, educator, and student) at that particular moment in time, particularly with regards to being invited into alternative ways of knowing, being, and doing. It's by far a perfect articulation of what needs to change, and it clearly still holds many biases, so I'm excited to see how a further poem about the same topic might turn out differently.... or not. For more context and citations, please see my show notes at https://playfulpedagogies.ca/.

Transcript

Welcome to the playful podcast, where we discuss lifelong learning and leisure by lingering at the intersection of recreation, education and occupation. I'm your host, Kim Barton, and today I wanted to do something a little bit different on this podcast. In the spirit of playing and learning along with each other, I wanted to share something that was a little more playful than usual and its in the form of a spoken word poem. Now this poem is not new, I wrote it about a year ago.. I'm not quite sure of it's kind of connection to everything I've been talking about so far on this podcast, however, the poem for me is very much a  landmark on my learning journey, in a broad sense kind of expanding my cultural awareness in general, but more specifically trying to understand and honour Indigenous ways of knowing within my work as a scholar and educator.  And so this poem is a bit of a deep dive into what I think about knowledge, currently. Without further ado, here it is.

“I knew it!” I’ve said, only to feel regret,

once I find out I’m wrong.

have I been wrong all along? How do I respond?

and how do I shape this to song?

knowledge as rightness, determined by whiteness

and colonial structures of college

I ponder my wrongness to resist in honest

attempts to unsettle and resolve this 

the trust in precision, is stifling rhythm, 

fixation with facts is so loud

turn it down, I’m not proud, it overpowers the crowd

we’ve forgotten how to play with sound

we discuss, relate, debate, agitate

and approve whose knowledge is true

we read books and papers dissect the layers

to decide whose knowledge gets moved

do you feel the groove?

is this even good science? by rightness?

how can I make a transition?

from regurgitation to conversation

how can I learn to listen?

what’s my role in this, am I complacent, worse - 

my developing praxis

co-opts ways of being so I don’t stop reflecting 

on each of my actions 

do you hear this?

yet I put my head down, say nothing out loud

settle into the academic 

ways that exist in mentorship process,

calibrating to scholarship

“grad schools lonely! But never boring!”

is what I have heard all year. 

but I thrive on my own (see my first canoe solo!)

so… won’t I shine here?

only to find that again I’m not right,

so how do I relate to this sense? 

of place and wonder and stories and blunder

perhaps all pretense and nonsense. 

I feel like a starving solo artist.

to reconcile my feelings of intuitive believing 

with not always being correct

is an act of resisting the structures and systems 

that regulate knowledge as fact

where’s the music in that?

what we know grows, it comes and goes 

and flows in a rhythm we prose

as conversation, tiny revelations, 

that never exist alone

and spark revolutions in each institution

to reimagine our futures

and ignite something fiery to undo the binary 

and provide some resolution 

can I make a musical contribution?

you know that feeling when time is twisting

and you’re so engorged in the process

plans become abstract, bending to match

a rhythm undistorted by facts 

perhaps 

we need more of that 

there’s no finish or start to this, stop rushing knowledge

these paths are winding and infinite 

no linear progression in life lessons

they’re just interconnected

to think in relations means intimacy and faith in a

two-way conversation

a dance of equity and accountability

with edits of refinement and persuasion 

sound is much more than entertainment

my knowledge is one piece, you may have another, 

and neither alone may be whole 

but together we weave a cohesive story 

that creates a little home 

maybe I’m not playing solo

hah, but home, you see, that’s again where we’re wrong

we’ve been telling lies all along 

home is the problem, only some beings blossom,

when we’re singing a stolen song

this predisposition to ask questions

of ownership and acquisition

unsettle institutes and dig up the roots,

to unoccupy the settlement of wisdom

remain responsive, relocate as wanted

reposition again and again 

be slightly nomadic, flexible by habit

home is created and recreated when 

I pick up and move, unearth my roots,

maybe I’m meant to pass through

I see where I have harvested, exploited, and marketed

in places that I am not native to

while there’s no place like home, and I can’t do this alone

who I am to think I’m of service,

to groups I’m not part of, I don’t hold the knowledge

and to think otherwise is a disservice

so I recalibrate, reroute, and migrate

to some space in-between

comfort and a front door, my thirst for more

means I find new ways of being

‘cause I won’t play along, when I don’t like the song 

and nothing really resonates, 

it’s too big or too small, doesn’t fit at all, 

then it finally it begins to dissipate

rodent models of schizophrenia 

my lived experience with mania, 

my research and knowledge converge

from big data privacy 

to interview anxiety

new interests mean I feel heard

nature-based pedagogy to Mad Studies

self-compassion and musicality

these things I know, although I may outgrow

my learning it emerges indefinitely

knowledge comes as we need it, 

no need to master it  

just trust in the process 

it is a forest, no need to engorge in it

let curiousity be your compass

while unlearning is unnerving, unsettling, disturbing

it’s birthing new ways of being 

a yearning for learning that trusts in the journey 

of investing in our shared meanings

I hear a tune in building

my ears can’t yet decipher such sophisticated cultures

of beings all interconnected

that linger in dependence a fermata suspended  

to know who we are is all relative 

so to all my relations, future generations 

and ancestors, it’s so good to meet you.

I hear your songs: can’t wait to sing along

in a tune rings true for you too.

so who am I? and what do I do?

I’m Kim, not Kimberly, except for my family 

and I play/work/live on the lands

of Dish with One Spoon, an Educator who

belongs to tributaries of the Grand 

and what does it mean for me to be an ECE

and occupy space as student

my roles have oppressed, and I feel unrest

in honouring that I am still human

while I’m no soloist I try to make the most of this

seeking serenity in solitude

a recovering positivist

wanna-be psychologist

exploring alternative avenues

extending towards my energy source 

what’s my connection to land

“Through unity – survival, all flourishing is mutual”

(there’s) no sustainability in a one-woman band

for as far as I can see, when I die my body

will feed many more beings

may my creations outlive me,

through interdisciplinarity

art, music, and stories

you can call me creative but I kind of hate it 

the romanticization of novelty

to know it by heart is part of my art

seeking the free flowing, softly

yet with the pressure to achieve, 

I am constantly wondering 

what this means for my own identity

to share ideas liberally, 

am I still appealing

to the academy? 

my aim is to deviate but also celebrate,

those who have allowed me to be free

to make space for more changes and liberation and

know my positionality

by disrupting discourses and dominating forces

and offer restorying lessons

a retelling of history, new ways of thinking

and address ongoing abjection

in this conversation 

I ask that we widen 

the range of human responses 

considered normal and not just neoliberial

understandings of concepts

intentional erasure of experience and nature

don’t think it’s beneath us

to centre research on whiteness is an act of violence 

the silencing is so insidious 

so how do I collect, analyze, and protect

complexity of researching communities?

recomplicate play through a commitment to name

experiences are not captured through binaries

maybe thinking in metaphors, expressing through symbols 

& narratives not to just benefit me

to investigate connections and the 100 languages 

capturing experience through story

literacy of place at a poetic pace 

and grace for BIPOC students 

and new immigrants and research participants 

and the more than human

mindbody spiritual and the emotional

cultural teachings and sovereignty 

I cherish your company offer space for exploring

there’s always time for tea with me 

well-being expression engagement belonging

how to foster these but not police 

From Teaching to Thinking, listening to possibilities

that’s my commitment within the academy

that is not to say that we’re all the same,

or that we can melt the past away

but if we can at least play in the same game 

or maybe in the same key

then, I imagine we are all just passionate

players in floral orchestras

choruses of dissonance, can you hear us?

aligning in harmonic performances

I think… I may not be right, 

I’ve been so protected by white,

I aim to know things differently, a gesture that learning 

is never ending in life

it’s symbiotic, entrancing, melodic, expansive

with evasive solutions

synchronicity, in many of ways being through

research as reconciliation as music

so we dance and we play, listen and create

in rounds that build in crescendo

conversing through harmonies, like little symphonies,

in call and response like a tango

and I stumble my way down pedagogical veins, 

admiring roots and leaves 

I follow, I lead, everything in-between 

as I realize that knowledge is breathing

it’s coming and going, ebbing and flowing

iterative and evolving

sense-based and spiralized, enduring over time, 

it’s living, too, so be kind

it’s alive

and it’s mighty, 

but I must tread lightly,

for it is not mine

it’s passed down by folks

I’ll never dance with or know,

so, I must know, responsibly. 

just like rightness and wrongness 

not binary opposites 

neither are unknowing and knowledge 

both oppressed and oppressor 

student and professor

untether 

settler 

from 

college

Thank you so much for listening, it you've made it this far. This poem means a lot to me and although it not maybe make sense to you. If it piqued your interest at all I might suggest taking a look at my show notes where I've put in citations because very clearly some of this is not my own work or ideas, it comes from many different things I've read over the past couple years. And while you're on the internet, feel free to give me a follow on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook @playfulpedagogies, and of course my website is playfulpedagogies.ca. Thanks so much, stay playful.