Today’s episode is guest hosted by Maggie Smith.

Transcript

I’m Maggie Smith and this is The Slowdown.

If you’ve had a good teacher or mentor in your life, even just one, you’re lucky. I still carry the words of my teachers and mentors with me. Even though some of them are gone now from this earth, I hear their voices. They’re still guiding me, telling me to slow down, to trust myself, to protect my inner life, to get out of my own way. So much of my teachers’ advice about writing is also applicable to other areas of my life.

I’ve been teaching creative writing for 25 years. There are many ways to be a teacher, and all of them require us to be students, forever. Part of being human is that we remain lifelong learners. We never have it all figured out. Thank goodness for that! Life would be incredibly boring if we did.

One thing I’ve come to know, as a teacher and as a lifelong student, is that language is incredibly powerful. It can transform the way we think and feel and experience the world. But another thing I’ve learned about language it’s that it has limitations. It’s often woefully inadequate. Sometimes I can find the just-right words. Sometimes I can’t.

I know I’m not the only one who’s experienced the inadequacy of language. I know I’m not the only one who’s struggled to communicate something I’ve been thinking or feeling.

But maybe you’ve experienced the magic of language. Maybe you’ve read something that articulated what you’ve felt or experienced but could never describe yourself. Or created some of your own artful language that gets across what you couldn’t say literally. It feels like a miracle, and it’s why, I think, we turn to poems: Because they often say the unsayable.

I feel both sides constantly—both the miracle and the inadequacy of language. That tension is part of what makes writing so thrilling. Language is the tool I have, and my work is to use it the best way I can. I’m forever learning how to use it. There is no end to that learning.

Today’s poem acknowledges that realm beyond words. It also reminds me that learning can, and does, happen anywhere.

Statement of Teaching Philosophy
by Keith Leonard

My students want certainty. They want it
so badly. They respect science and have memorized
complex formulas. I don’t know
how to tell my students their parents
are still just as scared. The bullies get bigger
and vaguer and you cannot punch a cloud. 
I have eulogies for all my loved ones prepared, 
but cannot include this fact in my lesson plans. 
The best teacher I ever had told me to meet him
at the basketball court. We played pick-up for hours.
By the end, I lay panting on the hardwood
and couldn’t so much as stand. 
He told me to describe the pain in my chest. 
I tried. I couldn’t find the words. Not exactly.
Listen, he said, that’s where language ends. 

“Statement of Teaching Philosophy” by Keith Leonard. Used by permission of the poet.