Sir Ken Robinson’s TedTalk spoke at a TedTalk convention in 2006 about creativity in education. He thinks that the model for education is the systematic instruction to produce educators or professors. He says this is a failing model. I completely agree; Education should (must) concern itself with creativity, with individuality and with interdisciplinary value.

I feel like the thesis of Sir Robinson’s talk is simply: we are born creative and we are educated out of our creativity by an institution that undervalues certain disciplines like art, music and dance. He said that there is a hierarchy of subject matters: math, language, humanities, and lastly art. Always lastly art.

I am getting my MFA in poetry and I have my BFA in fiction. When people question me about my degrees, they always subsequently ask, “What are you going to do with that?” as if there isn’t much to do. They are partially right. They are partially wrong. People think there is no utility to the imagination because you can’t market or sell creativity as a concept. You can only sell the byproduct. People don’t think that the byproducts of “soft” disciplines have capital. I beg to differ. Their capital is in the human economy, which is the most prosperous of them all. Money doesn’t make this world go round. People do. Money is a byproduct of the human intelligence and imagination. What we create will not, cannot, control us.

How do you show that poetry, fiction, dance, drama and visual arts have value? I don’t know. I can only say that it is an accomplishment of the human experience, of the soul, and to me there is no greater capital.

I am writing a poem about the word thaw. I like this word. According to Webster the word has many meanings, of which I was unaware.

There are the obvious meanings: to lose coldness, to go from solid to liquid state, to become free of the effect of cold.

Then there were these two gems: to abandon aloofness, reserve, or hostility and to become mobile and active.

When I was a child growing up with Michelle Tamborski, my bestie, I used to play games that required us to have imaginary husbands or boyfriends, sometimes fiances. Mine was always named John. The most generic name for a man on the planet, save Bob. Good imagination, huh?

Over the years, there have been real Johns and Non-Johns. Obviously. I’m an okay looking person and my personality is acceptable most days.

I write poems about Johns- about where reality intersects my imagination or my expectations.

The word thaw is a perfect word for John poems because I realize as I get older that the imaginary John and real John have to coexist. I mean that my imagination has to come to terms with my reality (abandoning aloofness). And my reality is pretty good so imagine what my imagination can whip up.

Anyway. There is now an ice age poem to add to the John mix. Its heading off to the man with the big red pen— grad school—at the end of the week. Wish it well.