Happy National Poetry Day 2018!!
So I feel apologies are in order, I am very sorry for the
utter lack of posting over the summer. It is safe to say the past few months
have been well… umm… transformative and with all transformations the journey
has been challenging at times but I am sure worth while in the end. Going
forward, now in the 2nd year of my 3 year PhD I am setting myself an
aim of writing one blog post a month at least. Lets see how I get on 😊
Today 4th October 2018 is National Poetry Day
here in the UK so I felt this would be the ideal time to post about a little
project I am working on. I am sure I have mentioned it before but earlier this
year I attended the WebSci18 Conference in Amsterdam were I was blown away by
the inspiring work of Pip Thornton from The University of London and her use of
poetry in her dissemination process. Influenced by this and the writings of Helen Kara.
I
decided to get creative when presenting at the Annual DTA Social Policy summer
School this year using spoken word poetry and visuals to tell of my 1st
Year PhD Journey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qpfKLLs9zw&t=27s
I really enjoyed this process as not only is poetry a type of
writing I find accessible with my learning difficulties but it also focused my
mind, reflecting on key mile stones and personal developments, some of which
may have gone unsaid if presented in the traditional formats.
It was very empowering to reignite a passion for writing
poetry as this was something I loved as a child but due to continued criticism
from adults regarding my spelling/grammar/phrasing, I became disheartened and
internalised the belief it was not something I was capable of. Now I am older
and wiser and possess a tougher skin to such criticisms it has been fantastic
picking up the pen again and writing in my free time.
During my past few supervision meetings the subject of keeping an academic diary has been mentioned. This referring to daily journaling of my PhD experience as
a way to keep a hard and/or digital record of my journey that can be reflected
on throughout the writing process as well as a memento of the growth achieved
over the three years. Initially I tried the traditional diary keeping, this did
not work, then I attempted to type up daily notes on my laptop, this did not
work, on my phone, did not work, so I thought about scrap booking but never got
round to it and then one day I thought what about poetry?
Poetry is one thing I can happily write on a daily basis! Poetry is also
something I can read with ease, unlike pages of scribbled notes or paragraphs
of digital text. Short, neat, concise bodies of text that summarise activities,
thoughts and feelings in a rhythmical way. So I decided to start a daily poetry
journal, writing daily Haiku poems (5,7,5 syllables) 3 lines in length and thus
far it has proved a success! I now have a 30 min period at the end of each day
reflecting back on the day’s experiences and forming a short yet descriptive
poem about the day. I am then able to look back over these to trigger memories
of that day including thoughts, feelings, achievements and struggles. Below I
have included some of my writings so far:
Meetings and Phone Calls
Attempting to find a space
Challenges and praise
Finally a plan
Clarity, comfort and hope
Writing begins now
© Charlotte
Oliver 2018
I am really enjoying this process and I imagine I will
look back over all these writings with fond memories of PhD years. I would
encourage others to give it a go and see if it might also be a technique that
works for them! If you do please tweet me @charlote_o89 as I would love to hear
about your experiences.
TTFN
The Dyslexic Academic
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