During the final weekend of March, I attended the 67th annual meeting of The Philosophy of Education Society. I mostly enjoy this conference; it’s small and selective, which I appreciate.
Nonetheless, by the penultimate day of the conference I had lost interest and even grown a bit coy and cranky about things. I began to doodle.
My first inspiration came from a funny, irreverent situation. Random noises—sounding like someone was hammering in the room next door—began to come and go during the presidential address given by Eamonn Callan, a well-respected philosopher of education from Stanford University. In a spirit of childish mischief, I wrote this description of what was occuring:
Random Noises
Random noises!
Interrupt the philosopher,
Vex disciples,
Amuse me and
Muse this poem.
Once I faded back into boredom, I began doing what I tend to do when I am bored at academic meetings: (re)read the program. Soon thereafter, I began to think of this redundant ritual and wrote this interrogative, meta-analytical verse:
“Reading” the program
How many times
do I read my
program,
trying to fill
the time,
politely
glancing titles, names, times,
playing pretend again and again,
and hoping that the program
proves more interesting than
the program?
After composing these two little verses, I began to think about something I could write about this experience. I jotted down this title: “On Writing Poetry During Plenary Sessions—A Love Story.”
Ah, the stupid, simple joys of academia!
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