Nourishing the Roots of Writing

My first collection of verse is written in a 6”x9”, 60 sheet, white, Pittman-ruled Steno Notebook with a wire spiral on top. On the front cover, my name in faded pencil. On the inside, the title: “Poetry/Lyrics/Whatever 1989-.”

I recently took this book off the shelf stuffed with all the journals I have ever written. For the first time in years, I am reading the poems in earnest. In the past when I read them, I rolled my eyes and was ashamed of the immature and melodramatic verses. This time I am reading from the perspective of an experienced eighth-grade English teacher and a mother of two small children; I am reading with a sense of respect and value for the young girl who wrote these poems.

Teaching for the past ten years has taught me that children and writing matter. Writing helps children explore and acknowledge their significance and communicate it with others. It helps them understand their uniqueness while also connecting them to a more universal human experience.

As I delve into my juvenilia, many questions arise. What are the roots of my writing? What nourished its roots? How has it grown from a tiny seed into a sizeable, healthy, living tree that continues to offer me shade and shelter? In general, how can all roots of writing be sown and nourished? How can I, as a teacher and mother, make my classroom and home into a lush, verdant, sustainable garden of writers?

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When I first started writing poetry on my own, I imitated rhyming verses I found in random places around me. The first poem I can remember writing was completely plagiarized.

My favorite mug that I drank my mostly-milk-coffee from had a girl’s face on one side and a short poem about friendship on the other. It went something like this:

A friend is one who always cares

Happy smiles and life’s small cares

Countless days of ups and downs

Makes me smile and ignores my frowns.

I liked this so much that I wrote it several times on lined paper with my name on the bottom. I even gave a copy to my third grade teacher, Mrs. Murphy. She hung it on her metal file cabinet. This was my first publish.

Later on, sixth grade or so, I found a chapbook of poems in the general junk drawer in the kitchen. Amidst rubber bands, inkless pens, torn pieces of paper with numbers on them, and my mom’s big glasses, was a small paperback book bound by staples. I don’t remember the title. Author was Ben something. There was a black border on the cover. Though I read the poems several times, I cannot recall specific lines. Just the feeling. The poems made me want to write my own poems, made me contemplate love and death. I would read one of Ben’s poems then write my own. I no longer wanted to just plagiarize. I realized I had my own vast inner world to explore. I felt such freedom wandering through forests of thought, feeling, and wonder. No adults to tell me where to go and not to go, what to feel and not to feel. I created my own paths as I went. There were no maps to follow. Just my own instincts and sensibilities, my own aesthetics.

The initial poems I gave birth to in my adolescent phase rhymed and were written in stanzas. Most of the poems in this notebook are about life’s wonders and disappointments, death as an appealing alternative to life, romantic love and its glories and heartaches, a developing pessimism regarding the world. The first poem in the notebook is written in cursive and here are the first two stanzas.
I long for the day
When our lips will meet
And when I feel your true caress
It’s then when I realize
That the day has come
When I have fostered happiness.

Without you my life is like
The dark midnight sky
A desolate battlefield
A feeling of loneliness
From a person’s last good-bye.
The writing is understandably cliché and sentimental. I was around thirteen when I wrote this. At the same time, the feelings expressed are those of someone who has begun to transition from a child’s life of pretend play and hide-and-go-seek to a more difficult young adult life of desire, disappointment, and other complicated emotions.

Writing was a way for me to make sense of the world and my self, and to confront a greater sense of darkness that I began to see and feel. My poetry became darker and gloomier throughout high school. Here is poem # 7 which was written some time in high school.
Death shall rescue me
From an unending misery
That has imprisoned my life
For now I live in darkness
And see no sign of light.
What was my impetus for writing this? Why did I often think about death as escape, relief from the world? Is this normal adolescent sentiment, a psychological stage that many adolescents experience, or was I uncommonly dark and dreary? What would have happened if I didn’t have poetry as a means of expression? I was never able to freely communicate with adults, never felt comfortable talking to my family about how I felt. Only writing allowed me to grapple with these feelings.

In high school, I discovered other poets whose grave tones and embellished language appealed to my aesthetics: John Donne and Edgar Allen Poe. I tried to echo their language and moods. Here is an excerpt from poem #31:
A lurid gleam of darkness
Has captured me into a fathomless abyss.
It is where I dwell
For there is no hope for my languid soul.
It has been destroyed by the impiety
Of the infamous multitude of mortals.
Impiety? Languid? Why was life so oppressive? Was it going to Catholic school? Was it my heavy-handed father? The conflict of my parents’ traditional Filipino culture with that of mainstream America?

While many of these elements in my life did oppress me, I also think that there was an inherent chemistry between myself and many of these words, a bond or friendship that was created. The words recognized and understood my burgeoning world of emotions, helped validate my existence, made me feel more alive and less alone. No matter what I was experiencing, I had words to communicate to and with. And these heavy, lashing, Latinate words were the words I could relate to most.

The roots of my writing are also steeped in the rich soils of other languages. While English was the language of school, the general public, and popular culture, it wasn’t the primary means of communicating in my house. My parents and our extended family and friends spoke Tagalog. Tia and Papi, our au pair from Colombia who lived with us since before I was born, spoke Spanish. Growing up, my father bragged to everyone that my brother and I were trilingual; this always embarrassed me when he said this. However, looking back as an adult, I deeply appreciate the trinity of tongues that have influenced my love and fascination with words and the history and culture that they carry. Though I didn’t read or write in these other languages, they provided pure verbal, aural, oral, rhythmic, and physical meaning and pleasure to my life. They are a large part of my poetic composition.

Aside from a deep love and admiration of language combined with a propensity to ponder life, certain teachers and opportunities in school helped strengthen my being as a writer. In high school, I was able to join Poetry Club. I also had teachers who really encouraged me to write and made me realize that I had a special talent. I remember Mr. Martinelli sent a postcard to my parents, an official card that somehow expressed that I was really good at writing. This made a lasting impression on me. Up until this point, I do not think my parents even knew that I loved writing. At a time when I was starting to feel distant and separate from my family, having my parents recognize this part of my life helped me feel slightly more connected.

College changed and strengthened my writing and reading life. It introduced me to a diverse world of creative writing and literature courses. I was beginning to read writers beyond the limited covers of the hard-bound text books I read in elementary and high school. I took poetry and memoir writing classes, 20th century American Literature, Asian-American Writers. I was introduced to writers outside of the text book anthologies I read in school. Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Ralph Ellison, Jessica Hagedorn, etc. In general, as my reading branched out, so did my writing. Little by little, my roots were extending to many new depths.

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Aside from the nostalgic joy of digging into my childhood and my oldest archives, I can find valuable lessons in contemplating the life of a young writer. My love of writing was conceived at home. My parents didn’t read to me. The bookshelves in the living room had old Readers’ Digests and encyclopedias. I wasn’t surrounded by literary treasures yet still found inspiration amidst miscellaneous items and clinking glasses, and among the daily voices of my home. Nonetheless, I wish I didn’t have to rummage through junk to find some poetry. I wish that I had had more good books to read. I wish that my parents had read to me and talked to me about reading. Now I make these wishes into a reality for my family. I try to foster a love of reading knowing that it might also foster a love of writing. We have shelves of books. We go to the library to pick out books, go to storytimes, read books at home every day, talk about them, act them out, connect them to movies, make up stories together, listen to and recite nursery rhymes and songs. Eventually, I will encourage my children to keep journals; we will share our own writing with each other, do different exercises and activities, and just try to have open verbal communication which will probably encourage written communication.

School is another influential place in children’s reading and writing development. It should be a place where children can be lavished with inspiring, thought-provoking, well-crafted writing, where all children regardless of social class, ethnicity, and experience with literacy can find books they love, where they can also learn practical skills to help them become stronger readers and writers. Classrooms, at least for English Language Arts, should be bountiful, colorful, aromatic, lush gardens where a great diversity of books from all over the world, from all different styles and time periods exist and help breathe life into children, books that reflect their interests and abilities.

Students should also have a variety of opportunities to write in different genres. The classroom should be transformed into a community of readers and writers where children are free to express themselves and discuss each other’s work. And based on my experience in school, teachers can make a difference in children’s writing lives by simply giving them verbal or written praise.

Writing is as beautiful and necessary as the plants and trees that grow around us. It helps connect us to ourselves and everything and everyone. It helps nourish us, mentally and emotionally.

In order to help writing flourish in children’s lives, give them pen and paper (or some technological equivalent), fill their rooms with books, and teach them to find inspiration anywhere, in drawers, closets, kitchens, or classrooms, and in words and voices everywhere.