The power of words

We all know that one of the biggest lies passed around elementary school is "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." It seems a bit cliche to even talk about how words have power to hurt and heal - it's something we know, right?

As an English teacher (teaching mostly composition), I harp on the idea nearly every day - word choice! Audience! Purpose! I'm sure my students get tired of hearing it at times.

Today, though, the immense power of words came crashing into my classroom. We were looking at Billy Collins' poem "The Names" and Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum Est." Both poems seek to memorialize, to etch into our hearts and minds the memories of those who have died. One does so in a reverent, almost ritualistic-prayer kind of way; the other does so by using bitterness and shocking, sickening images. Although they approach this same idea in vastly different ways, both poems carry with them the power of words - of images, of sound, of rhythm.

I introduced "The Names" by asking my class how old they were on 9/11. The oldest student was 11-years-old on that day (most were between four and six). I know I can't make them understand the experience of the day the way an adult would have experienced it, but I shared about where I was at the time (Wheaton...more specifically, Tyndale), what I saw, how I felt. We read the poem, and its prayer-like tone, repetition of the word "names", and images familiar to all who saw 9/11 unfold (words like "falling" and "the updraft amid buildings" and names that are outlined in a "green field") all came crashing in. I got a bit teary-eyed, and some of my students did too. I'll admit, I barely made it through reading the poem aloud. I didn't have anything to say at the end...so we just moved on.

I feel that way a lot, that I have nothing to say, really - that I should just move on. As someone who writes and loves words, that's an awkward, uncomfortable place to be - wordless, empty. I'm starting to see, though, that even my silence, even the "moving on", is saying something. And maybe it's saying more than mere words could.