One Way to Cultivate a Genius, Day 24 #VerseLove, In Appreciation of @GholdyM Always...Work with Annotations and Find the Poetry in Thinking.

Day 23 of #VerseLove and a new challenge. Find a book you've annotated and write a poem based off the notes taken in your margins. Not a bad assignment for April, especially since I've taught Gholdy Muhammad's Cultivating Genius for the first time in a grad seminar, and her book always seems to be in reach. 

I remember the first time that Marcelle Haddix paired the the two of us for a conference presentation. It didn't occur to me then that we were sort of academic siblings. This revelation came years later and I couldn't be more proud. Not only does she cultivate geniuses, she is a genius, too. She's written the book we've always needed and I've never had more success working through chapters with graduate students. Everything comes together perfectly because of her guidance and brilliance.

And so, I took notes of my notes, had a flashback, and decided to write the 24th poem of the month. I will be sad when the daily challenges end - they make April so much better. 

One Way to Cultivate a Genius

   in appreciation of Gholdy, always

~b.r.crandall

We were Writing Our Lives,

scripting dialogue in another room,

when he put pen to notebook, 

wand to mind (this was Cedric’s magic)

and walked in his shoes

from Degahaley

to Kakuma

to Syracuse.

Alfred’s advice,

“Don’t go ahistorical”

(this, before I learned

the importance of  

a Gholdy-star).

For Europeans, writing remained reason, 

and they guarded Gates well -

these ethnic notions have always been global,

fired deep into the bricks 

of foundations, especially schools. 

Freedom is just

an empty name, 

a mockery,

if access 

& tools 

are locked

in the

shed.

Poetry is liberation, 

for pens to fight back —

to write a better humanity for us all.

Who we are

How others see us

Who we desire to be

it’s never been the kids…

it’s always been the schools

their deficit constructions

catalogued by zip-codes, politicians

& book-banning school boards.

Good teachers know

to reshape curriculum

to meet the needs of kid

rather that mutate kids 

to meet the needs of curriculum.

The pedagogies are urgent, indeed.

Yet we have failed a nation

that measures Whiteness 

in tanning booths

on NYS tests…

the organic nature of bias

is in the food we feed them,

layering deficits on regents

rather than passing on knowledge

with ubuntu and skills for life,

(muscle is built

with theory,

the critical race

of being human).

We are the conduit for emancipation,

the cobblers who quench thirst when enabling texts

to fit them in the right shoe.