Publishing your writing - assignment

At udgive sine skriverier er et vigtigt led i at lære unge at skrive, det betyder nemlig at skriblerierne bliver autentiske. Og det er i sig selv en motiverende faktor, lyder forklaringen fra professoren på kurset Teaching Writing to Adolescents. Derfor bliver de lærerstuderende sendt ud i virkeligheden for at 'publicere' deres egne skriverier, eller sagt på en anden måde - tage deres egen medicin, inden de ordinerer den til eleverne. Offentliggørelsen må gerne være kreativ, kan skrives på vægge, beton, træer, i sand med vand og flødeskum, så længe det bliver dokumenteret, at digtet eller essayet rent faktisk kom ud til en bredere skare end blot professoren.

Her er så mit digt og rationale:

Lipstick at the can

I wonder if this will come off again

It’s nothing like when you put it on your lips

Maybe I can write the poem with my mouth

Kissing the inside of the door to the can

A goodbye kiss to UBC, to Vancouver, to Canada

The last thing to do before one leaves is kiss some one farewell

Maybe the chosen one will get a lipstick print on the cheek

Maybe not

Perhaps there is no more left for the lips

It’s all sticking to the door

What if one gets caught in the act

Pretending to be in a private place doing private things

for publishing

That’s what they teach us over here

Doing weird stuff at weird places

All this effort

Teaching writing

in lipstick

Rationale:

In Copenhagen, where I live, you cannot go into a washroom without getting a chance to read poetry. We even have an expression for it in Danish – ‘Lokumsdigte’ – which would be something like ‘can poetry’ in English. It is everywhere, some of it is funny, a lot of it is obscure, and some witty and wise. I have not seen much poetry in the restrooms in Vancouver. Everything is so neat and tidy.

Therefore, I thought it could be funny writing something on the door to the can at UBC.

Poetry of this kind is ‘published’ with whatever you have at hand - a pen, an eye pencil, a lighter, spray paint or a lipstick. I always have a lipstick in my purse. Thus, the lipstick became essential, so out of the idea of writing a poem with lipstick came the lipstick poem. One could say that the form definitely decided the content.

So, I got up one morning, early, early, went to UBC and into one of the washrooms in the Neville Scarfe-building, sat on the can and started writing my poem on the inside of the door recording it with my camera. Besides putting it on the course blog, I will ‘publish’ it on the blog I have created so my fellow students in Denmark can read about my stay in Canada and at UBC.

It was not easy joggling with lipstick, poetry and a camera, but it was a lot of fun, and for adolescents it would be even more entertaining. Doing ‘stuff’ you usually are not allowed to do. If they are reluctant to writing I am sure a publishing exercise like this could change their perception of writing. The form could actually become a writing prompt, which it was for me.

Due to technical difficulties, the video I made, cannot be shown on this blog. I tried out different formats with no luck, which reminds me that as a teacher you must be sure always to have a plan B if the technique does not work out as planned.